End of the Century
didn't make
the Ramones
into the stars they so wanted to be, so they hooked up with another '60s icon,
Graham Gouldman
, for its follow-up,
Pleasant Dreams
. Oddly,
Gouldman
directs the band away from their
bubblegum
,
British Invasion
, and
surf
fetishes toward
acid rock
and
heavy metal
. They still manage to squeak out a couple of irresistibly catchy songs, but the production is too clean to qualify as
punk
, and the music itself has lost sight of the infectious qualities that made their earlier records such fun. Yet those flaws seem endearing compared to the metallic meanderings of their late-'80s records. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine