All good cretins dwell near turntables

Future times will bring spectacular songs, in a number of styles and from sundry assemblages. But there will never again be tunes precisely of a sort with those wrought by the globally celebrated, glue-sniffing, bowl-cut, leather-enwrapped misfits from New Yorks' broken boulevards.

I call it the 'Ramones formula' - the seamless union of chewy-chewy Pop that once blared from cheap transisters that teens pressed to their ears while shooting sidewalk curls, and killer-chorded LOUD brutalities that separate skulls from spines and send grinning heads veering tiltedly into the Outsider Zone.

Lyrically, both the great unwashed of disposable drive-in subculture and agonized teen angels enjoyed portrayal:

"I'm just a comic-book boy / there's nothin' scary to enjoy / Freak admission, stroll inside / I was born on a roller-coaster ride"

"I kissed her and hugged her and I said good-bye, last thing I knew

she wouldn't make it alive / Oncoming car went out of control, it crushed my baby and it crushed my soul / Now all I've got is sorrow and pain, standing out here in the rain / The crash, shattering glass,
the sirens, and pain / It's driving me insane oh-yeah"

For their first several albums, the Forest Hills four credited all numbers to simply 'The Ramones.' It was in subsequent years that individual credits emerged.

Sources today differ as to which original member penned any given carbonated mini-classic. But among ones main tune-scribes Joey and Dee Dee -- bards of the Central Park Reservoir -- either authored solo or collaborated on, sometimes with Johnny and Tommy leaning in, are:

Blitzkrieg Bop / Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue / Glad to See You Go / Cretin Hop / I Wanna Be Sedated / Teenage Lobotomy /  Rockaway Beach / Pinhead / I Wanna Be Well / Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / Don't Come Close / Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio /  Rock'n'Roll High School / Tomorrow She Goes Away / Psycho Therapy / She's the One / Go Lil' Camaro Go / Life's a Gas / She Talks to Rainbows / Pet Semetary / Makin' Monsters With My Friends.

The tenement fire-escape, outsider commandos were a prolific (not always) happy family. But the catalog is far too extensive for remark here. (In years ahead, subsequent members Marky, Richie, and CJ also contributed material.)

Sneaker imprint of the Ramones Formula can be found in a wide swath of contemporary endeavors, so profound is the torn-jeans pogoers' enduring impact. Zombina and the Skeletones, Brad Marino, Yee Loi, the 66ers, Poison Boys, Hillbilly Casino, and Sour Mash Kats are but seven that currently honor the Ramones in songcraft, spirit, or both.

(Again, many others exist.)

Punk at its core being an alacritous swipe against prevailing mores -- both musical and cultural -- it's completely in tune with the rebellion instinct that present-day provocateurs reject traditions and stitch novel menaces.

Hence, what ripsaw tunes now crowd beneath the Punk

banner tend more toward surly cacophony than bubblegum- confection Bay City Rollers huffing carbona in the closet.

Still, there is abundant value in incorporating past sways and gestures into fresh works. Such has often been the way of Rock'n'Roll. Of art through the ages, when you consult some hushed museum geek.

Da Brudders drank heavily from the pool of 1960s bands both obscure and chart-topping. Those combos offered much, long after initial splashes. And their notions lived on, albeit in acromegalic aspect, in the Ramones' Formula.

And though decades have passed, I still keep Ramones LPs beside my turntable. All good cretins do.

AI music poisonous counterfeit

Music is an expression of humanity, not technological artifice. Composition begins in thought. Instrumental realization is most honestly performed by human beings.

There were no wind-up keys in the plaid-shirted backs of Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West.

Machines are not capable of independent thought, creativity, or interpretive production. True, artificial intelligence programs can in a twinkling assemble ideas fed into them by humans -- and they certainly can arrange those per typed request -- but no cold contraption ever had a brainstorm.

While penning these words, I asked an artificial intelligence program to compose Rockabilly song lyrics. Here's one verse:

Well, it's a cyber-billy boogie on the radio waves
Yeah, a cyber-billy boogie driving everyone crazy
Flip my toggle switch, baby, watch me go
Got a million gigabytes of Rock and Roll!

That's a far piece from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

Whether a song's author breaks fresh stylistic turf or embroiders upon already existent fashions, he cannot help but be (at least somewhat) reflective of cultural persuasions.  

Not only is artificial intelligence unaware of social permutations not generally accessible in the clouds -- it can't even flip its own ON switch.

Despite all that, manufactured music in sundry genres is seemingly ubiquitous. Persons exploring musics online must tread with caution as if in sketchy neighborhoods.

Understood is that a songwriter or producer might find it simpler to pour notions into machines, rather than enlist breathing players, that their visions assume form.

But the result reeks of sterility. It satisfies no discerning listener who truly loves music.

A factory construct can't feel exhileration, heartbreak, or rebelliousness. Those emotional phenomena -- which prompt creation and inject real, blood-surging life into music -- are exclusive to people. State-of-the-art components can no more cry or laugh than can store-window manniquins.

The battle between man and machine is hardly a new matter. John Henry, the steel-drivin' man of railroad-worker choruses' folk legend, was said to have pounded more spikes than his metallic, steam-powered competitor. 

Just so, human conceptions embody actual life sparks that doggerel issued from components simply does not. Man stands victorious.

I'll hand over a million dollars to anyone who can produce a mechanism that's known the blues.