What to do on a Friday when there is nothing really exciting going on? The monsoon season is over (see last post). As, for all intents and purposes, is the Red Sox season (and, frankly, glad of it!). Work is work. I’ve got it! Since I’m on this incredible Phil Spector kick lately, allow everyone who visits this post to compare and contrast two different versions of the Ramones’ hit song Rock and Roll High School.

First up, the Tommy Ramone-produced single version.

Now, compare that with the Phil Spector-produced version found on their album End of The Century.

Here are my thoughts. The single version has a very clean sound, for sure – in fact, sounding very much like that of their earlier albums Ramones and Rocket To Russia. And in that way this version sounds to me a lot like their hit Sheena Is A Punk Rocker. But I absolutely love-love-love what Phil did to this song: first of all, that bone-crunching opening chord (hearkening back to the opening of “A Hard Day’s Night”), which supposedly took days for Spector and Johnny Ramone to perfect. Secondly, the sound effects aside, the whole song seems to come alive under Phil’s direction: overdubbed extra guitars pushed up front, the background vocals a little more forceful, and bit of echo goes a long way, especially on the vocals and drums (featuring more cymbals by Marky Ramone). To me the energy put into it makes it sound almost like a completely different song.

I think the single version is truer to the Ramones “sound”, but Spector’s album version is superior to the single version. What do you think?