Ramones - Rock 'n' Roll High School (1980) **UPGRADE**

I recently found an interesting clip on Youtube which prompted me to revisit my creation of a Phil Spector-less version of the Ramones' 1980 album 'End Of The Century'. When I first put it together I replaced a few of the tracks with demo versions, one other with a film soundtrack take, removed one track completely, and used the album versions of the other five. It wasn't ideal, and I did try to improve it a couple of times without success, so left it as it was. What never occurred to me at the time was that if I wanted the songs with no Spector production then I could have just used live recordings, as they would have been played exactly how the band wanted. I've therefore replaced 'Let's Go', 'I Can't Make It On Time', 'The Ain't Havana', and 'All The Way' with live takes, and for the demos of 'Danny Says' and 'Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio', and also the soundtrack version of 'Rock 'n' Roll High School', I've fixed some vocal drop-outs and boosted the guitar, as I never noticed before just how low in the mix it was. I've only kept the album versions of 'Chinese Rock', 'The Return Of Jackie And Judy', 'High Risk Insurance' and 'I'm Affected' now, but I've stripped them right back to just guitar, bass, drums and vocals. I've also tweaked things where needed, such as toning down the timpani effect on the drums on 'I'm Affected', and speeding it up slightly so that it now sounds more like how the band played it live. As I'd renamed the album 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' then I feel justified in adding 'I Want You Around', as it was included on the soundtrack of the film of the same name, but this is a live electric version to match the rest of the album. Lastly, we have that Youtube track that prompted this whole revamp, and that is a Ramones-ified 'Baby, I Love You', which for once isn't by AI, but by a real person, who has taken the original vocals and sped them up, used the drums from the demo of 'All The Way' which fitted pretty neatly, and then added guitar and bass to give a fine approximation of how the Ramones would have played the song in concert. I'm much happier with this re-working of the album, short though it is, so see if you agree that it's an improvement on my original revamp of the Spector version of 'End Of The Century'.  

Track listing       

01 Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?   
02 I'm Affected   
03 Danny Says  
04 Chinese Rock
05 The Return Of Jackie And Judy   
06 Let's Go
07 Baby, I Love You    
08 I Can't Make It On Time  
09 This Ain't Havana
10 Rock 'n' Roll High School 
11 All The Way

12 I Want You Around  
13 High Risk Insurance