The Ramones

Recorded in 1977 and released two years later, this live album shows the band in all of their focused, animalistic punk-pop brilliance. The guitars are gigantic and Joey sounds like he's spitting in your ear. They perform 28 songs in what feels like 25 minutes, and if you don't know the words to every one, you should be killed.

Redundant when it was dropped on the punk-besotted U.K. in 1979, this concert is precious history now--seems so impossibly light and quick it makes you suspect they didn't fully sustain their live pace into their forties after all. Partly it's repertoire--the 28 songs reprise their three best albums, and all but a couple are still classics. Mostly, though, it's Tommy, who hung in for five years without ever turning show drummer. They needed Marky (and Richie) to drive them on. But it was Tommy who designed the vehicle. (Grade - A-)