Brain Drain

The Ramones: Joey Ramone (vocals); Johnny Ramone (guitar); Dee Dee Ramone (vocals, bass); Marky Ramone (drums).
Producers: Bill Laswell, Jean Beauvoir, Daniel Rey.
Most people ignore the Ramones' later work for one reason or another. The most likely reason is that the boys themselves play relatively few post-1979 songs in concert. In the case of BRAIN DRAIN this turns out to be a mistake, as it's the album most evocative of the classic Ramones sound since SUBTERRANEAN JUNGLE.
"Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)" and the cover of "Palisades Park" are so lavishly produced that they could have been outtakes from the Phil Spector sessions (though minus the negative karma that accompanied that time period). "Don't Bust My Chops" finds the Ramones revisiting the crunchy guitar sound of the mid-'80s albums, only with better hooks this time around. "Zero Zero UFO" returns the boys to familiar goofball territory and "All Screwed Up" keeps them there. BRAIN DRAIN also contains an actual bona-fide almost-hit single in "Pet Sematary," a song written for the Steven King film.