Gabba gabba hey!  Today, Rhino has unveiled a new box set bringing Ramones into a new frontier: that of immersive audio.  1!2!3!4! The Ramones Atmos Collection brings Queens' favorite band into the realm of Dolby Atmos with new immersive mixes of their first four albums on Blu-ray Audio: 1976's Ramones; 1977's Leave Home and Rocket to Russia; and 1978's Road to Ruin.  Limited to just 2,000 copies, this set is available exclusively at Rhino.com and Warner Music's international storefronts.

The four-disc set features new Atmos remixes from original producer Craig Leon (Ramones) and original engineer Ed Stasium (Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin).  Additionally, the original stereo mixes will be included on the Blu-ray Audio discs in high-resolution stereo (playable on all Blu-ray players).

Joey (vocals), Johnny (guitar), Dee Dee (bass), and Tommy Ramone (drums) introduced their fast and furious style of bubblegum punk on 1976's Ramones.  With the anthemic cry of "Hey ho, let's go!" the Ramones hit the big time...and three chords never sounded so intoxicating.  Despite their unvarnished, simple punk sound and lyrical themes of violence, horror and well, glue-sniffing, the Ramones were pop kids at heart, and Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy celebrated the sounds of surfing and girl groups, just played incredibly fast and incredibly loud!  (Among the originals, they even covered Chris Montez's "Let's Dance" on the LP.)  Songs like "Blitzkrieg Bop," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" all captured the energy and spirit of the then-burgeoning New York punk scene; the vibrancy and vitality of these tracks has ensured that Ramones remains a rock-and-roll touchstone today.

Their first album of 1977, Leave Home, continued the approach of Ramones: fast, furious, and crunchy riffs played in rudimentary style but with abundant energy and punk swagger, tight melodies that owed their debut to an earlier generation of pop music, and anarchic, snotty and subversively "dumb" lyrics on a variety of often-taboo topics.  The raw, gritty, and back-to-basics, snarling sound of the Ramones' music was an antidote to the day's prevailing trends, whether the pomp of prog and heavy rock, or the hedonism and lush gloss of disco.  As on Ramones, the tunes were fast and tight; the longest track ("Pinhead") clocked in at a mere two minutes, forty-four seconds.  Sire brought in producer Tony Bongiovi to helm the album along with T. Erdelyi (a.k.a. Tommy Ramone, using his real name) but by all accounts, Bongiovi's master stroke was simply to stay out of the Ramones' way of doing what they did best.  Most of the album was recorded live in one or two takes, with only a minimal amount of editing.    Leave Home overflows with retro influences, including an amped-up cover of the oft-covered "California Sun," and even an ironic doo-wop ode to misogyny (the ironic "You're Gonna Kill That Girl").  The band was creating memorable nuggets with the likes of "Oh, Oh, I Love Her So," a pop love story that begins at a Burger King; the irreverent "Glad to See You Go;" ironically perky "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment;" and the classic paean to a girl in the punk rock scene, "Suzy Was a Headbanger."

Rocket to Russia arrived later in 1977, taking the sound and feel of its predecessors to the next level.  Though the band initially bristled at the "punk rock" tag, they embraced it for "Sheena is a Punk Rocker," with its nods to the comic book jungle queen and the sound of sixties surf.  The tune bopped its way onto the Billboard Hot 100.  The band earned its highest-charting single ever with "Rockaway Beach," an enthusiastically catchy surf-music ode to the sunny spot about ten miles down Cross Bay Boulevard from the Ramones' birthplace of Forest Hills.  But other influences and sounds found their way onto Rocket - never veering too far away from the tried-and-true, but subtly expanding its boundaries.  "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" slowed the tempo down as a slice of Brill Building-inspired heartbreak, and "Ramona" proved the band could do pure pop with ease.  With its "heavy" guitar riff and simple chords, the disaffected "I Don't Care" goofed on metal in irreverent Ramones fashion.  Both "We're a Happy Family" and "I Wanna Be Well" disguised truthful social commentary with a blasé attitude and bitterly humorous outlook.  The dark pair of "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Why Is It Always This Way?" similarly showed that no topics were taboo for the band to skewer.  The Ramones continued the cover tradition on Rocket with not one, but two, choice oldies rendered in breakneck Ramones fashion: Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance" (by the way of The Beach Boys, of course) and The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird."

The last album in the Atmos box, Road to Ruin, was the biggest departure yet.  Most significantly, Tommy Ramone had stepped away from his drum kit to concentrate on a production/songwriting capacity.  Marky Ramone, a.k.a. Marc Bell, replaced Tommy and brought a harder, more primal style.  Tommy, working under his real surname of Erdelyi, joined engineer Ed Stasium as co-producer of the LP.  Overdubs were extensively used; once the band laid down its basic rhythm tracks, additional instrumentation was added for a fuller sound.  For the first time, a Ramones album had 12 songs instead of 14, and two of them clocked in at over three minutes' length.   Yet the "classic" Ramones sound was in evidence from the get-go on the fast and furious "I Just Want to Have Something to Do" and the even faster and more furious "I Wanted Everything."  Joey, whose confident vocals were typically commanding, was as happily snarling as ever on "I Don't Want You" but approached sweetness on an affectionate cover of Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche's oldie "Needles and Pins," famously introduced by Jackie DeShannon and covered by The Searchers.  The relaxed tempo on the latter might have surprised ardent Ramones fans, but they would have been in for even more of a shock on the twangy, country-tinged ballad "Questioningly" on which the band even embraces sincerity and tenderness.  "She's the One" had the speed and power of punk but with a more-or-less straightforward lyric that came right out of the Brill Building playbook.  "I Wanna Be Sedated" followed in the band's tradition of "I Wanna" songs, becoming one of their most well-known tracks.

Ed Stasium comments in the press release for 1-2-3-4! The Ramones Atmos Collection, "These Atmos mixes present the Ramones' recordings with the clarity and power with which I always imagined hearing them.  It might sound a bit cliché, but I find listening to them to be like seeing the sequence from The Wizard of Oz where the film morphs from black & white to color. These Dolby Atmos mixes are transforming the original mixes from 16mm black & white into vivid IMAX!"

Are you ready to rock with Ramones?  This set is available now from Rhino.com.  You'll find the track listing and order links below!

Ramones, 1-2-3-4! The Ramones Atmos Collection (Sire/Rhino, 2025)

Ramones (Sire SASD 7520, 1976)

1. "Blitzkrieg Bop"
2. "Beat On The Brat"
3. "Judy Is A Punk"
4. "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"
5. "Chain Saw"
6. "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue"
7. "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement"
8. "Loudmouth"
9. "Havana Affair"
10. "Listen To My Heart"
11. "53^rd & 3^rd"
12. "Let's Dance"
13. "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You"
14. "Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World"

Leave Home (Sire SA 7528, 1977)

1. "Glad To See You Go"
2. "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment"
3. "I Remember You"
4. "Oh Oh I Love Her So"
5. "Carbona Not Glue"
6. "Suzy Is A Headbanger"
7. "Pinhead"
8. "Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy"
9. "Swallow My Pride"
10. "What's Your Game"
11. "California Sun"
12. "Commando"
13. "You're Gonna Kill That Girl"
14. "You Should Never Have Opened That Door"

Rocket to Russia (Sire SR 6042, 1977)

1. "Cretin Hop"
2. "Rockaway Beach"
3. "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"
4. "Locket Love"
5. "I Don't Care"
6. "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker"
7. "We're A Happy Family"
8. "Teenage Lobotomy"
9. "Do You Wanna Dance?"
10. "I Wanna Be Well"
11. "I Can't Give You Anything"
12. "Ramona"
13. "Surfin' Bird"
14. "Why Is It Always This Way?"

Road to Ruin (Sire SRK 6063, 1978)

1. "I Just Want To Have Something To Do"
2. "I Wanted Everything"
3. "Don't Come Close"
4. "I Don't Want You"
5. "Needles And Pins"
6. "I'm Against It"
7. "I Wanna Be Sedated"
8. "Go Mental"
9. "Questioningly"
10. "She's The One"
11. "Bad Brain"
12. "It's A Long Way Back"​