Ramones-All The Stuff (And More) Vol. 1 (1990)

 

Artist: Ramones

Title: All The Stuff (And More) Volume One

Label: Sire/Warner Bros.

Format: CD

Cat #: 9 26220-2

Year of Release: 1990

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1990

Sold Price: $3.49

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 10/26/20

Discogs Last Sold: 8/30/20 $12.73 NM/NM

Low: $1.10

Median: $3.34

High: $12.73

Current low price: $0.99 VG/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 12

Have/Want: 620/47

Where Sold: Louisville, KY

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: Newbury Comics Boston New Upon Release

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: D-

Sad To See It Go?: No

What better band to write about on US election day that the band that encompassed left and right political poles without killing each other for a decade and a half.

First off, the contents of this album are A+/A material.  Ramones I'd give A+, Leave Home an A.  This compilation came out when none of the Ramones catalog albums were on CD, just the Ramonesmania and CD era releases starting with Animal Boy which I bought as an import $20 CD after I bought the vinyl.  Halfway To Sanity was the first that came out on CD in the US simultaneously with the record and tape.

While the CD was crucial when it came out for the previously unreleased studio tracks there were a couple problems.  The artwork of the first two albums were eliminated.  The mastering was thin.  Normally I didn't care, but with the Ramones the remix deemphasizing the guitars and the grime in exchange for clarity was disturbing.  These were some of the greatest artifacts of rock n' roll, and they weren't meant to sound so clean.

The early demos, "I Don't Want To Be Learned/I Don't Want To Be Tamed" and "I Can't Be" are embryonic.  The live tracks from the Leave Home era are great time fillers, but the Leave Home deluxe edition adds the whole 1977 CBGB's concert.  The original mix is included as is a 40th anniversary mix and bonus tracks.  All The Stuff clearly wasn't all the stuff Ramones fans wanted.  Nobody wanted to restore the 1990 mix upon reissue.  You can't even stream these mixes on youtube for comparison purposes.

This slapdash approach was corrected for the most part when Rhino started to reissue the individual albums.  Now these albums have been reissued yet again in deluxe packaging with even more bonus tracks, rendering previous editions useless.  The only reason you would buy this cd is you have to have everything or you want the music cheap.  You don't even get "Carbona Not Glue" which was pulled under threat of lawsuit by the Carbona company shortly after the initial release.  I bought Leave Home a second time on vinyl for $20 to get this sometime in the late 80's, but it somehow disappeared over the years, as did most of my vinyl Ramones collection.  

And cheap I sold this CD.  Someone actually got over $12 for a near mint copy last month, but that was an aberration.  It is more likely to sell in the $3-5 range.  I dropped it to $3.49 at some point this year which was slightly above the median,  I think it was flagged when I had it at $3.99 when I was cutting flagged prices en masse.

I had a rip on the hard drive, but I would have to A/B the vinyl, this cd, the first reissue and the deluxe reissue to write something truly intelligent about the sound.  I can only go from that sound in my mind.

It sounds like I'm sick!  

Perhaps sick enough to vote at 6AM since I'm wide awake since 3:30.