Ramones

Too Tough To Die (1984)

C.M. Crockford

Too Tough To Die

is one of the purest Ramones albums, a pummeling record that captures

the Ramones responding to the harder edges of the new punk and taking

advantage of the trends to get back to basics. This is still a band

that can record “Endless Vacation” and then do the massive

“Howling At The Moon”, a song whose songwriting is so in sync

with Dion and the early 60's rock ballads (even if the synths

obviously date it) that for years I thought this was a cover of

something much older than 1984. It's a great mix of the Ramones at

their meanest and prettiest, and it's probably the last great thing

they did.

It

should be said then that the album isn't exactly Minor Threat Redux –

one thing that dates Too Tough To Die

is the fairly pristine Eighties production, from the reverb on some

of Joey's vocals to the muffled, heavily mic'ed drums (the worst part

of it by far). There are synths, keyboards, even a piano roll on

“Daytime Dillema”. As much as the production is screwed over

slightly by that large mid-Eighties sound Tommy Ramone does a fine

job making Joey's voice harder and rougher than it's been in years,

and when the song needs to sound nasty he goes for it. “Wart Hog”

is exhilarating, fun hardcore punk with Dee Dee singing as if he's

descended completely into animal form, the vocals less language than

a continual braying of rage.

These

are also much angrier songs than anything on End of the

Century, like the raging “Human

Kind” or the swaggering, brooding “I'm Not Afraid Of Life”. The

two hardcore style songs with Dee Dee are pounding freakouts that

proved that the Ramones could do hardcore and Misfit-style chants

brilliantly, they just didn't need to (Dee Dee by the end of “Endless

Vacation” sounds like the drugged, bile spewing uncle of Darby

Crash). Yet these are balanced by the Ramones' ability to do perfect

pop, like the aforementioned “Howling At The Moon” and the

rockabilly, cocksure “No Go”.

The

Ramones probably never did anything as great as this again but Too

Tough To Die is still a classic

of eighties punk, with at least two of their best songs popping up

here. On re-listen even amid eighties reverb it holds up incredibly

well on the strength of the writing and range. It was the Ramones not

just saying that they could rock out with the younger kids, but

saying “We can do anything.”