Beat on the brats Weird Tales of the Ramones offers the ironic story of an American original BY RICHARD C. WALLS

What we have here is yet another Ramones anthology, probably the definitive one. The box itself looks like a hard-cover comic book. Inside, in place of the usual learned and/or fannish liner notes, is a real comic book, thick with contributions from more than a dozen artists. There are four CDs and a DVD compilation of music videos interspersed with appropriate encomia from appropriate performers and scene makers and one radio guy who calls the group "the Johnny Appleseed of the new wave," claiming that where the Ramones played, "new wave" groups sprang up in their wake. He means well.

So it’s a cool-looking package, even if the musical story is one of prolonged decline. Disc #1 excerpts their first four albums (’76 to ’78), and though some may laud those sides as the holy grail of punk, in retrospect you’re struck by how clean and precise the group sound, how poppish the melodies are, and how tame the entire enterprise is. Of course, we’ve heard so much that’s louder, faster, and ostensibly stupider since, but 30 years on, it’s clear that subsequent outfits who were labeled "punk" had a different agenda. For one thing, almost everything here has a gloss of irony that makes the sordid subject manner enjoyable. And though the only emotions that come through without a wink and a nod are those little dollops of sadness that thread their way through Joey’s homely vocals, everything is permeated with a feel-good buzz. The Ramones were a fun band.

So why didn’t they experience a commercial breakthrough? The original Ramones — Joey on vocals, Johnny on guitar, Dee Dee on bass, and Tommy, the band’s co-producer, on drums — were a high-concept band. The concept fit the times so perfectly, you could believe they hit on it with a minimum of calculation; still, it kept wider popularity at a distance. They offered a scanty take on the basic appeal of rock at a time when people wanted ostentatious musicianship and trowel-sized sincerity. Natural reactionaries, they were turned off by the drifting mainstream rock of the mid ’70s, partly because all that rockless bloat was annoying, but also, and more important, because it didn’t offer any opening for them.

They weren’t the wave of the future, they were the prankish ghosts of the past, in a genre where the au courant ruled the airwaves, the distribution of product was tightly controlled, and music remained marginally less important for itself than for its ability to feed fantasies and abet the construction of burgeoning adolescent identity. The Ramones revolution wasn’t grand, it was grubby. And it couldn’t compete with the blissful languor of a couple of joints and the Electric Light Orchestra, or the manly retro of Bob Seger. It was faux low art, aimed at the smartest and most alienated kids in class. Besides, really popular music would always be dominated by, as Mick Jagger once said, "good-looking guys with great haircuts." The Ramones did not fit that description.

It’s not that they were too good for the period — too pure, too righteous — but rather that the severity of their rejection of prevailing trends was premature. One of the sad ironies of the Ramones story is that by the time punk had spread and codified and was ready to do battle with the dreaded soul killers of pop, the band were no longer in any condition to take advantage. They had become respected elders, appreciated for their groundbreaking work but producing music that seemed more and more irrelevant.

After the first three LPs, which are compiled here on one disc, the point had been made. Discs #2 and #3 of the box sample the afterlife of a great idea; you listen with declining interest as the group try to determine whether there’s life beyond their original musical template. The three cuts here from 1980’s End of the Century, which was produced with a heavy hand by Phil Spector, have the band disappearing into a overheated garden of baroque garnishing. "Do You Remember Rock ’n Roll Radio," slathered with horns and God knows what else, sounds more new wave than punk (the organ seals the deal), and the assertion of the old rock virtues has been replaced by flat-out nostalgia. (Interesting that the end of the ’70s is equated with the end of the century, both an acknowledgment that they’re entering a new phase and an admission that maybe the gig is up.) "I’m Affected" sounds like an Alice Cooper song with a chorus orchestrated by Jeff Lynne; "Danny Says" has amusing lyrics about being stuck in Idaho, but the melody is tickled along by a harpsichord before the Spector jackbooted bomp kicks in.

What you hear is a group not seeking new ideas so much as stepping outside their created personae — like Kiss taking off the make-up. But this is where the hardcore fall by the wayside or into the arms of other bands, the dedicated start to rationalize, and the newcomers wonder what all the fuss is about. Through the ’80s and ’90s, the Ramones came to resemble a conventional rock band with interesting quirks; meanwhile the original punk impulse was being absorbed and mutated into various metal subgenres and corrosive noise bands who took loud, fast, and ostensibly simple to new heights of intensity. The benign anti-social aspect of the Ramones, often humorous, often self-depreciating, was never a huge influence. The Sex Pistols and the Clash may have taken inspiration from the Ramones’ musical directness, but the former’s serious obnoxiousness and the latter’s serious seriousness were so far from the Queens quartet’s intent as to make Joey and company seem mild-mannered practitioners of some other form of music.

Back at Ramones Central, the box finds the band wandering in the wilderness for almost 20 years, accruing legendary status as "the original punks" while their old audience slips away and a new and larger one fails to coalesce. There’s good stuff here. And they did make at least one near-perfect album in their later days: ’84’s Too Tough To Die, represented here by six selections. It was on that gem that they most nearly updated their old panache, though given what surrounds it in Weird Tales of the Ramones, I suspect that was just a happy accident. On 1992’s Mondo Bizzarro, which is represented by "Strength To Endure," complaints like "I just want to walk right out of this world/Because everybody has a poison heart" reveal that these guys just weren’t fun anymore.

Still, the Ramones were an American original, and the first disc here is a killer. They’re ensconced in the rock pantheon. And on AOL radio, they’re featured 24/7 on their own station, right up there with Rod Stewart and Bobby Darin. That could bring a tear to an aging punk’s eye, though not necessarily one of joy. Posthumously, they’ve been deemed appropriate for general consumption by a huge corporation. How ironic is that?