Based on what I know of their songs and their overall concerts, I think they specialized in small doses.
I don’t think it is so much “hate” for The Ramones, as it is not a lot of love and respect. Their music was not very successful commercially and didn’t get a lot of mainstream recognition, so they weren’t considered major players. A lot of punk bands, like the Sex Pistols, got a lot more recognition, but the Ramones didn’t catch fire in the media and the music buying public.
The Ramones weren’t liked by a lot of people because they didn’t fit the expectations of those people. In their time, people were album oriented and wanted to see some replication of that work.
The Ramones didn’t sell a lot of vinyl. Vinyl was a poor medium for them. They were very much a live band. They played a million different little venues, and it seems like everything I have ever read about them was that they were great live. Some bands are like that.
People also didn’t understand what the band really was - rock, punk, pop?
Well, certainly they can be considered punk, and they were punk long before just about anyone else. Back then, a lot of people looked at the British and European punk bands and kept in their minds that those were the true punks, but early American punk was different, in sound and looks. The Ramones had definite punk attributes, but they were different from the punks from across the Atlantic.
And The Ramones were rock ‘n’ roll - real, true rock 'n’n roll. They weren’t considered that by many, and they certainly seemed primitive and crude compared to the many artists that most people considered rock & roll legends, but The Ramones were R&R.
But they weren’t “final product” R&R.
You take almost anything in this world, and you separate the chaff and impurities, boil it and reduce it down to a piece of purity, and everything becomes an almost unrecognizable lump of essence. In this case, you don’t end up with a sparkling diamond, but a piece of coal.
The Ramones were a few chords, played frantically fast, accompanied by basic repetitive lyrics and performed by misfits who never changed or grew up musically. They often performed like a grenade with the pin pulled out, and they sang of teen life, love, cars, angst, and occasionally, about some silly shit. It was unique, it was an inspiration to others, and it was fun.
That was what was left in the bottom of the crucible after the smoke cleared.
They would have liked to have been more successful commercially, and they dabbled in it a bit, but wouldn’t change enough to make it work - all the better for us.
And a lot of people never gave them the respect and kudos they deserved, but the ones that did was the ones they had been playing for all along anyway.
The Ramones were pioneers of punk rock and, like most pioneers, were ridiculed by people who saw the more refined version (if that adjective can be used for punk) that came later. As usual for such pioneers, they don’t sound like what later evolved. Some think this means they were bad. But the later groups were shown the way by the Ramones and just took it further; it’s unlikely there’d be Dead Kennedys if there hadn’t been Ramones.
The main difference (using the excellent terminology in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics) is that the Ramones had a very crude surface. Surface is the easiest artistic level to achieve, but paradoxically, a lot of people are impressed by it the most, which is why other groups get mentioned as being better. Overall, the Ramones are doing far more than later entries to the genre, but the later entries were following, not blazing a path.
Musically, the stripped down rock as simply as possible and played it fast and loud, with some catchy tunes and lyrics.
Jesus, kids today! If only you’d been around to experience the overproduced, oversentimental crap that was passing for rock in the mid-to-late 70s, you’d understand how refreshing and raw their music sounded, with its three insistent chords and partially-shouted lyrics. So maybe it’s the environment, right? I was also a huge Sex Pistols/Clash fan at the time and it also sounded raw and energizing, but listening to it again, it comes off as rather melodic and poppy a lot of the time.
And yes I saw them live in 1980! Now get the fuck off my lawn.
My 7 year old son loves the Ramones, and that’s good enough for me. 
Horrid fucking thought.
And now off to listen to Blitzkreig Bop in memory of a great live act.
Couldn’t agree more. Damn near elemental.
Couldn’t keep a secret
Got a concrete skull
Couldn’t shut up you’re an imbecile
You’re an ugly dog there’s
Nothing to gain
You couldn’t shut up got a
Bad bad brain
But that’s OK, tastes differ. 
The world would be a far, far poorer place without The KKK Took My Baby Away, My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, Teenage Lobotomy and many many more.
Then punk happened. And I saw the Ramones, early on at a country-rock palace in Denver. They were opening for some record-company band, so the local music establishment, and I emphasize the word “establishment,” was there in force, and the handful of us who knew the Ramones were up in front. And half the fun was, you know, not only were the Ramones the most powerful band I had ever seen at that point, but they made it look so simple–that anyone could do it, hell, even I could do it. This is what I should be doing.
- Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys
They certainly made an enormous impression on other musicians. I’m 35 and they were a big part of my childhood.
I went to Joey Ramone’s 50th birthday party in 2001 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. I’ll never forget it. It was going to be a huge concert with Joey and everything. He died just a few weeks before the show. In a very short time, the organizers managed to get Blondie, Cheap Trick, and the Damned (among others) out to perform. Joey’s mom got up and spoke. There was a genuine outpouring of adoration for Joey and the Ramones from a wide swath of fantastic musicians who all came to celebrate Joey’s life and memory. It was extraordinary.
If Jello had been there, I would have keeled over.
I saw them live in 1986. Can I stay? I brought beer.
Wait, you’ve got beer? You can stay even without having seen them!
Saw them live at CBGBs a bunch of times in '76, '77, '78, '79, around then.
I didn’t know CBGB was ever going to be famous, or that anything important was happening there. I did know that the drinking age was 18 in New York back then, and they weren’t picky about ID at the door, so I, at 17, could go there. It was cheap, too.
I didn’t know that the Ramones were the beginnings of a “movement,” didn’t know they were ever going to matter, or be the subject of critical attention.
I loved them. They were fast, loud, funny, melodic and fun. They clearly loved all the same pop and bubblegum songs I loved. They were clearly something that could only be a product of the same New York City that I grew up in (was growing up in, then). From their homes in more or less middle-class Queens to the filthy alley behind CBGB, they were taking the same roads I was.
God, I loved those guys.
What a bizarre statement. It’d be like saying Edgar Allan Poe wasn’t a horror writer because his stories don’t have zombies in them, or something.
I saw them in '77 at a tiny place in Campbell, Ca. They were loud as shit…and fun as shit, too.
And, as a slightly-off-topic-aside, I’d like to say that PJ Soles was extremely cute in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.
Hi Wordman, I think we’ve previously discussed how the Ramones were like a musical version of Mad Magazine. (Which you thought was a definite virtue, and I think is kinda candyass.)
But my real problem with the Ramones is I don’t care about the hooks on most of their songs. There’s a handful I love, (Sheena, RR Highschool, Sedated, maybe Blitzkrieg) but for the most part, I listen and shrug.
And at their height, they were the absolute best rock band in the world for doing just that. They have the position of being one of the first rock distillers, in my mind. Every rock band before them was just wine and beer. The Ramones skipped brandy and went straight to figuring out how to make whiskey. Initially they even sold it at barrel proof.
I’ll go ahead and say it: If you don’t like The Ramones, you’re rock’s version of a little girl, you don’t like the rough stuff - even when it’s good. We can get you a wine spritzer, if you like. 
Touche. 
Not in the slightest. Punk came from anger with the establishment and revolutionary thinking. The Ramones were a power pop band who were basically pousers. I love the Ramones…not as much as some here. But I love them for what they were.
I never heard the Ramones when they were “current”. I wish I had. Music was going to hell at the time and the Ramones would have been awesome to hear instead of the crap they played on the radio.
I like then now. Don’t love them, don’t hate them.
I don’t know about the loving them part but they always sounded like a parody band. I would liken them to Spinal Tap.