The Ramones “made it a rule never to smile for official photographs,” The group held that attitude in official photographs throughout their career, through 14 studio albums, two dozen music videos and 2,263 shows.
For four decades, an affectless portrait on the cover of the Ramones’ self-titled debut album has proclaimed, “We don’t need you.”
But a rarely seen outtake from the same photo shoot admits to something more humbling. In it the Ramones, smiling, seem a bit more like what they were: four guys from Queens who went to Forest Hills High School and would love their album to become a big hit.
As it turned out, the four original members of the band, all now dead, did need us.
Shot by the photographer Roberta Bayley in 1976 for the third issue of Punk magazine, their stoic image was bought by Sire Records when another photo shoot yielded disappointing results. The cover has generated tributes and parodies in equal proportion over the years, with generations of bands donning leather jackets and striking poses of studied nonchalance.
But the image was itself a product, a choice the Ramones made to convey urban toughness, to help them stand out from the emotive hordes of mid-70s rock.