Subterranean Jungle
| Subterranean Jungle | ||||||||||
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| Studio album by the Ramones | ||||||||||
| Released | February 23, 1983 | |||||||||
| Recorded | December 1982, at Kingdom Sound, Syosset, Long Island | |||||||||
| Genre | Punk rock | |||||||||
| Length | 33:21 | |||||||||
| Label | Sire | |||||||||
| Producer | Ritchie Cordell, Glen Kolotkin | |||||||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    |
| Robert Christgau | A− |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Subterranean Jungle is the seventh studio album by the American punk rock band the Ramones, released by Sire Records in February 1983. The album appealed to a hardcore punk rock style rather than featuring several pop oriented pieces; this is because guitarist Johnny Ramone received more leeway with steering the overall genre with his hard rock influenced riffs. The recording sessions saw disputes between band members, mainly because many of the band members were dealing with alcohol addiction, or in bassist Dee Dee Ramone's case, cocaine.
The album begins with two cover songs, and features a third on Side 2. Lyrics circle various themes, while the structuring of the songs shifted towards hard rock, psychedelic rock. The album was deemed by critics to be an attempt to retreat to the band's roots and received mostly positive reviews. Subterranean Jungle was not very successful commercially, peaking at number 83 on the US Billboard 200 and failing to chart internationally. The singles released from the album did not chart either. This is the last album by the band to feature Marky Ramone on drums until the 1989 album Brain Drain.
Unlike previous albums, Subterranean Jungle shifted the band's sound output focus towards getting back to their punk rock roots, rather than trying to expand fan-base by releasing more pop-oriented songs. This change is due to guitarist Johnny Ramone obtaining more priority over the style choice. Johnny felt as though the band needed to "be focused and stop worrying about getting played [on the radio] and just make a good record." Since lead singer Joey Ramone was not given as much stylistic freedom, the album lacks the sense of pop-influence which previous releases had contained and instead was shaped mostly by Johnny's hard rock background.
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