Road to Ruin by The Ramones

Road to Ruin, the Ramones' fourth album, came out on Sire on September 22, 1978, and it's the first one with Marky Ramone behind the kit. Tommy Ramone had quit the drum stool, worn down by the road and the disappointing sales of the earlier records, but he didn't go far: he produced this one under his real name, T. Erdelyi, together with Ed Stasium.

The sound is still three chords and a cloud of dust, but the brudders were sneaking in things punk wasn't supposed to allow: guitar solos with a whiff of heavy metal, and soft, dreamy ballads in the '60s mould, with "Questioningly" and "Needles and Pins" slowing the pace right down. Some heard it as a play for radio airplay. Radio mostly didn't bite, and it stalled at number 103 on the Billboard 200, a big drop from Rocket to Russia.

But time has been kind. "I Wanna Be Sedated", a buzzsaw blast of bubblegum, got a hit video almost a decade later and is now one of their best-known songs, second only to "Blitzkrieg Bop" in streams. "I Just Want to Have Something to Do", "She's the One" and "I'm Against It" hold up just as well, and fans hold the whole record dear.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.