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The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'
- mediumsmart 7mo agoMade my day. Thank you
- FerretFred 7mo agoFascinating! Always love these backstories. The Ramones were brilliant - I don't have a favourite album but my most-watched DVD is The Ramones Story
- musicale 7mo agoThey're played every day on the radio, on streaming services, etc. Billions of listens vs. thousands (?) of shirts.
- chii 7mo ago> Billions of listens vs. thousands (?) of shirts. how much of the revenue derived from those listens turn into commission to the musicians? Those t-shirt sales came about because of those listens, so even tho the music wasn't as revenue generating, it acts as the biggest funnel.
- bryanrasmussen 7mo agoI mean I sort of believe that most Ramones t-shirt sales came along because of the listens, but then again I see lots of Misfits t-shirts on kids born this century and considering it's in Denmark it seems unlikely it's because their parents were big Misfits fans. Of course Misfits had a much more impressive visual aesthetic, so that might explain their continuing design relevance.
- musicale 7mo ago> commission to the musicians To the original Ramones you say? Might be hard to deliver. But how much of traditional broadcast radio license fees accrue to musicians? Zero, unless they happen to be the songwriters (but good news for Max Martin et al.) Record companies also got no royalties from radio airplay (in fact they got in trouble for paying radio stations to play their music.)
- TMWNN 7mo agoIsn't it normal and typical for musical acts to make more money from concert tours and merchandise sales than the music itself?
- brigandish 7mo agoNot in the past. When that change flipped from music sales to merchandise and tours, I couldn’t be sure but I’d reckon the early 2000s.
- hvs 7mo agoIt's not that they made more money from merchandise, it's that they sold more t-shirts than albums. Implying that more people were interested in the "image" of punk rock than the music.
- bryanrasmussen 7mo agoI can wear out a t-shirt much faster than an album, tape or CD, and I am not very caring of the conditions of albums. I've also never seen anyone slam dance carrying a Ramones album, but I have seen them slam dance wearing a Ramones t-shirt that got tore up.
- lb1lf 7mo agoI guess that's the definition of 'iconic' - many a time I have approached someone wearing a Ramones or Motörhead T-shirt trying to chat a bit, only to be told 'Sorry, don't know the music at all, but the shirt is cool...' Gabba gabba hey!
- bigbuppo 7mo agoThe last time I went to an Exodus show, there were more people in attendance than sales of their most recent album.
- 9rx 7mo agoAlthough the article is unsure whether they sold more t-shirts than tickets, implying that people were interested in the music in a live capacity. Which is a reasonable implication given that punk grew up around the DIY culture. A commercially produced recording doesn't exactly align with the interests of that type of community, even where that community enjoys the music itself.
- jimt1234 7mo agoSeems like The Ramones were way ahead of their time, whether they knew it or not. Before the digital age, most bands made the bulk of their their money from record sales. Concert tours were just promotional events for the latest album. That model has since been flipped to what The Ramones were doing 50 years ago - "music sales" earns little compared to concerts and merchandising. Now that's punk rock! LOL
- follie 7mo agoI think you are describing the most successful bands. I wouldn't be surprised if the average band good enough to play a small venue made more money on the shirts than the records and tapes. People weren't choosing them from among all the bands at the record store but from all the experiences in the town that night.
- mikeryan 7mo agoNo. Just no, this is backwards. Bands, especially bands early in their career made money from touring. Merch was always a huge driver. Bands got “loans” to record albums with that had to get paid back first before they made any money from album sales. It’s better now because artists can record pro quality music at home and go direct to consumer with TikTok and Spotify.
- deeg 7mo agoIf the Ramones put their name on all sorts of merchandise does that make them sellouts? I joke, of course, and I'm a big Ramones fan. I've had numerous iterations of that shirt over the years. I often use them as an example when discussing "what is good art?" They are one of the most influential bands of all time and yet they were terrible musicians.
- belZaah 7mo agoTerrible in which way? Did not use counterpoint sufficiently elegantly? It’s punk, mate. Try to do a set downpicking like Johnny.
- gexla 7mo agoYeah, punk was a bit of a rejection of the polish of the big bands of the time. In a sense, the "horrible" was sort of the point. And for the shock value. But did that really mean they were horrible? Probably everyone kind of sucks at first. But it's hard not to improve your skills once you have got to a point where you have done a certain number of shows because you created a sustainable cash flow to support it.
- deeg 7mo agoThere was an interview with Joey (maybe in the greatest hits liner notes?) where he said at the beginning they were trying to cover their favorite songs from the 50s and 60s but they couldn't figure them out. So they wrote their own that were easy (my word) enough to play. Imo they were terrible musicians but a world class band.
- mosessupposed 7mo agoI believe in the idea that if you really do the hell out of something, you can make up for a lot of shortcomings. Quantity and spirit can substitute for quality in almost all artistic pursuits. Here's Bill Withers on selling out: “Sellout… I’m not crazy about the word. We’re all entrepreneurs. To me, I don’t care if you own a furniture store or whatever – the best sign you can put up is SOLD OUT.”
- joey1978 7mo agoHow does it haunt them when they are dead?
- flexagoon 7mo agohttps://archive.is/APkyC https://archive.is/APkyC https://periscope.corsfix.com/?https://english.elpais.com/culture/2026-03-17/the-uncomfortable-truth-that-will-always-haunt-the-ramones-they-sold-more-t-shirts-than-records.html https://periscope.corsfix.com/?https://english.elpais.com/cu...
- mrandish 7mo agoI read that Aerosmith made more money from Guitar Hero game royalties than from their albums. And it's been true for a long time that most acts make more from touring and merch than song sales.
- noobermin 7mo agoIf you read the article, it will be clear that one of its core theses is that their lighting tech and graphic designer was essentially a pioneer of selling merchandise as a revenue generator for a band.
- hdhdhebbbwhwuuw 7mo agoShawn Stussy printed shirts to promote his surfboards and ended up being the originator of “streetwear”
- roncesvalles 7mo agoAll "skateboard" brands are arguably t-shirt brands that also sell boards on the side for the street cred.
- keeganpoppen 7mo ago[flagged]
- cyrusradfar 7mo agoshots fired.
- HerbManic 7mo agoThey have certain charms but talent wasnt high on that list.
- andy-p 7mo agoPinhead
- silisili 7mo agoMusic is always highly subjective, but to my ears, I'd have to agree. Not that my opinion means anything at all. I think the headline implies as much... people liked the idea of the Ramones more than they liked actually listening to them.
- ykonstant 7mo agoI really enjoy their songs, and I first listened to them in my late 20s, long after the age where bands imprint on you like a baby chick.
- curtisblaine 7mo agoThey didn't. What happened is that one of them (Johnny) was a staunch conservative, so, like Sex Pistols with Johnny Rotten, they are routinely "cancelled" from the punk scene (e.g. they are not real punk, their music sucks etc). Other bands with less musical prowess (like the Exploited) are still idolatred by the punk scene because they were largely anarchists. It's fun that, after 50 years, Ramones and SP are the only punk bands that still generate controversy. Pretty much all the others are run-of-the mill punk bands that we got used to and completely lost any provocative charge.
- card_zero 7mo ago
- riffraff 7mo agoWell, Brian Eno said of Velvet Underground's first album that it didn't sell many copies but everyone who bought it started a band.
- JKCalhoun 7mo agoYeah, thinking the same with regard to the Ramones. They are name-dropped so often by bands that came since—pretty sure it is not because of a t-shirt.
- FeepingCreature 7mo ago"your favorite band's favorite band"
- gopher_space 7mo agoThis is how you end up with a Big Star album.
- BowBun 7mo agothat's Pile!
- whywhywhywhy 7mo agoThey're definitely a household name because of the tshirt, same with Joy Division
- nunez 7mo agoIt's even more prolific than that. Ramones-core is a sub-genre of pop-punk, and it's awesome. Teenage Bottlerocket, Screeching Weasel and Swingin' Utters are some examples that come to mind.
- suoer 7mo ago[flagged]
- kleiba 7mo agoIsn't the whole point of touring to sell merchandise?
- slyall 7mo agoToday perhaps. But in the past the artists money from selling records. So the tour was to promote the album, rather than the other way around
- sesm 7mo agoGetting paid for live performance was the traditional way for musicians to earn money for centuries. Record sales was a temporary thing that is now gone.
- kgwxd 7mo agoLive performance is also now gone.
- lotsofpulp 7mo agoLive performance is about status signaling. A party with a live performer (or at least a DJ) is considered fancier than one with just a streaming phone. At the high end, live performance pays more than it ever has, since the exclusivity is what people are paying for. At the low end, the performers get squeezed because they are competing with lots of amateur DJs or people simply doing without a human.
- kgwxd 7mo agoThose are more like live appearances. Basically them doing stuff while a DJ plays a recording of a song the "artist" probably had 1% part in writing. Expensive karaoke. The actual musicians of the world lose money doing live performances these days.
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- locallost 7mo agoI don't mean to be crude, but how can it haunt them, when they're all dead?
- PunchyHamster 7mo agoI dunno, Seems like author of article is projecting, I feel like most people would be happy if they made that much of an cultural impact
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoI have a friend that worked with them. I sent him the article. He’d know, if it was correct.
- triyambakam 7mo agoAnd?
- braiamp 7mo agoFriend probably still sleeping
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoYup. Happily retired. Anyway, he would have been one of the folks signing the checks. If he says something interesting, I might report it back. He sometimes just blows sunshine up my ass, but he's certainly one for interesting stories. Worked with some of the most deplorable narcissists in history, and hardly ever has a bad thing to say about any of them. I can see how he did so well. They probably loved working with him.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoJust to report. He told me that they got paid plenty of money, but their T-shirt sales were enormous. He said they still sell like hotcakes. Apparently, Nirvana has also done well in that department. Of course, I can't speak for the general health of each band. They made money, but I'm not sure how well things worked out for them... I don’t think there’s any Ramones, left.
- 7mo ago
- schnitzelstoat 7mo agoI was wondering the same thing about Iron Maiden the other day - they seem more of a merch company than a heavy metal band these days. You can get Iron Maiden beer, Iron Maiden wine, Iron Maiden sunglasses etc. let alone the common merch like T-shirts. Given many more people can buy merch than can buy a concert ticket (which has inherently limited numbers) I wonder how the two revenue sources compare.
- nizbit 7mo agoKiss too. Kiss was a merch juggernaut.
- supernes 7mo agoIt's the same with the "Star Wars" brand - the biggest chunk of revenue comes from merchandise and licensing, not the movies/shows. Lucas famously became a billionaire by securing merchandising rights in his original contract, not because of the cultural impact of the franchise.
- bombcar 7mo agoThey're tied together - Lucas wouldn't've had the billions if Star Wars hadn't had the cultural impact allowing it to sell all that merchandise.
- dalmo3 7mo agoPoor take. In the last three years alone they've played over 100 concerts. Their set is two hours. They're all in/approaching their 70s. If that's not a band, I'm a pterodactyl.
- psychoslave 7mo agoEven if they are indeed a band, that doesn't mean you are not a pterodactyl, mind you. But pterodactyl are pretty cool too my mind, so no offense really.
- 7mo ago
- circlefavshape 7mo agoI get a lot of content about "how to promote your band"* and it's almost ALL about finding "superfans" you can sell merch to - so the actual art is reduced to ads for t-shirts * I've been in the same (unsuccessful) band since 1987 - obvs I have a day job too
- metalman 7mo agoThe Ramones are most defintly un haunted, doubly so by anything as subjective as the "truth" They captured, held up, and released the feeling that litteraly countless humans have experienced, and wished, as it turns out,to display as something "gotten off there chest"
- abap_rocky 7mo agoI was reading an interview with the band "Agriculture" recently and they had a really interesting take on this. From this interview https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-violence-of-consumption/ https://www.treblezine.com/agriculture-interview-quiet-viole... : "DM: We exist as a band because we sell t-shirts. Our job is that we sell t-shirts and the way we promote those t-shirts is by playing music. If we were talking strictly economically, that’s just a fact. LL: Weirdly, it’s also our most direct engagement with the money we make and with our fans. We’re often selling our own shirts at the merch table; that’s actually how we talk to a lot of fans and get feedback on our sets. We get cash in our hands; that’s one of the most direct economic exchanges in our lives as musicians. So, it is funny because it seems cynical, but it’s actually one of the more grounded exchanges in what we do." As it turns out, I had a nice little chat with their drummer when I bought one of their tshirts.
- ageitgey 7mo agoIt's very smart of them to recognize that. The world is full of these weird business cases where people aren't aware of the actual product, like how Starbucks US morphed from a coffee shop into an iced dessert drinks company that also incidentally sells hot coffee. Edit: Other fun examples - In the mid-2000s, Porsche was an incredibly successful hedge fund that also sold cars who tried to acquire VW using a short squeeze. Most US airlines are profitable frequently flier points companies that also operate airplanes to justify the program. Target US is a real estate company that operates also (profitable) stores.
- VBprogrammer 7mo agoOr Blockbuster being a massive real-estate company. Or McDonald's for that matter.
- pixl97 7mo agoCar manufacturers being financial/loan organizations is another.
- bsenftner 7mo agoInvented punk? nah.
- nottorp 7mo agoWell that goes for most bands doesn't it? There's this local band. I go to their concerts at least once per year. But we also own 4 of their hoodies in our family of 3. I bet they made more money from the hoodies than from the concerts.
- Insanity 7mo agoI think what the article is driving at is that The Ramones are the _first_ band where that became true.
- nottorp 7mo agoAre they? I mean they're world famous. I'm sure there were thousands of local bands before them that made a penny from merchandise. Maybe they didn't even have finished records to sell.
- newsclues 7mo agoMarketing has become the pinnacle form of art.
- Insanity 7mo agoI’m a big fan of rock and metal music and often go to concerts. I’ll always buy a t-shirt of the main band I go to see, even if I don’t particularly vibe with the design, because I know it’s an additional way to support a band I like. In my opinion that alone is worth it, but it is a fun piece of memorabilia. Although I don’t wear most of them in my day to day, especially the older ones. I’ve got shirts from about 2008 onwards, which is the year I first went to see Sabaton and Disturbed.
- nazgulsenpai 7mo agoI wish I had, and the only shirt I ever got at a show was from Necrophagist. A girl I was seeing at the time left my house wearing it and I never saw it again :( I went to see Amon Amarth headline in ~2013 and Sabaton was one of the openers. I had never heard of them before but they actually were on par with Amarth's performance and I've been a fan ever since!
- Insanity 7mo agoThat’s unfortunate! But you can start your collection going forward haha :) Yeah Sabaton is great, I’ve been a fan since Primo Victoria, their debut album. They’re also doing an NA tour this year (after rescheduling some dates). I’ve mostly seen them tour in EU so this is a good chance for those outside EU to see them live!
- nazgulsenpai 7mo agoThanks for the headsup, I will definitely try to make it out to see them again!
- foobar_______ 7mo agowhy don't they have donate pages or venmo QR codes at the concert? I am serious. I don't want more stuff. I don't need tshirts. I don't need trinkets. I legitimately love music and want to support, but it is so difficult. Best I can find is digital sales of an album that doesn't cost them any manufacturing/shipping costs.
- gadders 7mo agoThe power of "Kill a Commie for Mommy".
- ModernMech 7mo agoI think that’s probably just a universal truth in many industries. How many people have donated to the Linux foundation versus how many people have bought some sort of Tux merch? And why should that fact be haunting? The point of being in a band isn’t to sell records, but to make music. The only reason the t-shirts sold is because the music was good and they were iconic. Where is the ghost?
- rdiddly 7mo agoThe ghost is in the clickbait machine.
- gizajob 7mo agoHas anyone ever read, or even seen, THRASHER skateboard magazine?
- werdnapk 7mo agoI have stacks of them still saved in boxes from the 80's.
- syedkarim 7mo agoI mostly looked at the pictures.
- reducesuffering 7mo agoYes, for millions of skateboarders it was essential pre-2020. Not it's fault it became trendy for people like Rihanna to sport an edgy skater aesthetic.
- roncesvalles 7mo agoThrasher merch is now widely regarded as an anti-brand in the skateboarding community. Only poseurs (the term of art for people who dress like skateboarders but don't actually skateboard) wear it.
- gchamonlive 7mo agoWeird that the perception of value is how much money a product makes. Sure they sold more t-shirts than records, but without the records the t-shirts would have been worthless.
- analog8374 7mo agoImpact on other people is probably the best measure of value. Pirating is a value-enhancer.
- forinti 7mo agoI find their music repetitive. I could certainly listen to one or two songs, but not a whole album or show. And I would have no qualms wearing a T-shirt of theirs. So there you have it.
- wewewedxfgdf 7mo agoSo the band's image resonated more than their music.
- hustleracer 7mo ago[flagged]
- bena 7mo agoI mean, yeah. I need to buy the album once. I can buy multiple shirts, posters, etc.
- throw4847285 7mo agoI highly recommend Simon Reynold's history of post-punk, Rip It Up and Start Again. An oversimplified version of his argument is that punk as a movement barely existed. It was an extremely brief cultural moment, represented by a small number of bands, the most influential of which (The Sex Pistols) was basically manufactured. There wasn't enough to that initial punk sound other than energy and posturing. What punk really did was act as a catalyst for an explosion of musical creativity that followed.
- Arkhaine_kupo 7mo agoI thought about it a lot growing up, as I loved both the ethos, sound and culture of punk. Radical acceptance, the grotesque denial of the aesthetism that is used to sell products etc was all appealing back then. The "betrayal" of finding how much of the sound was manufactured happened roughly at the same time as I figrued out how everyone at punk concerts could afford 200£ new doc martens when my shoes were falling apart. But the reality is I think there was a real underlying "want" for that sound,ethos etc but societally there are no publically owned means of distribution. So if the only way to reach people is through private channels, like radio. Then the only people with reach will be those that benefit Capital. I think society wanted, needed, cared about the punk ethos against the buy/sell your soul hamster wheel the corporate lifestyle promised. The white picket fence was dead as a dream, but the alternative dreams had no way to reach people without passing through the hands/eyes of someone who could make moeny of the new dream. And thats why it only happened briefly and with bands like Sex Pistols that beneffited someone selling Clothes. There was someone who could make money so the sound was given a stage. But you can see the seeds planted then to show up regularly. Gyarus in japan rejecting traditional beauty standards, grunge as a response to manicured glam rock, the blog era of rap, the acceptance of non traditional genders like non binary/ neo pronouns etc. Even acts that probably would not describe themselves as Punk like Sofia Isella, who opened for Taylor Swift, use a lot of the codes of punk with her overt embrace of dirty grungyness as opposed to perfectly presentable femininity.
- throw4847285 7mo agoI wasn't even alive at the time, so I've only experienced the whole punk and post-punk scene after the fact. I always found myself way more drawn to post-punk music, and it's nice to know that you really did have to be there to experience how radical punk felt, regardless of its origins. The waves of musical scenes that spread out from that initial punk moment took that energy and ran with it in some radically different directions. For example, I love the B52s, and it's easy to forget that they were responding to punk. This video of a show from 1980 is one of my favorite concert videos ever, as it captures that energy that is missing from the studio albums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVXfkG7q_0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVXfkG7q_0s
- alsetmusic 7mo agoMaybe fifteen years ago, I saw a teen wearing a Pink Floyd shirt and my internal thought was to ask her which albums she liked (sarcastically, I was pretty jaded at the time). I didn't approach her, of course, that'd be mean. But years later I remembered that I bought a Pink Floyd tshirt at Hot Topic (for The Wall, scene with the apocalyptic archway with WW2 bombers / planes[0]). I knew who they were as a band and I knew some songs from radio. I didn't really know their music. I didn't become a huge fan until years later. I was that teen girl, turns out. 0. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/6e/50/a46e50cd5ac9f67e15ddfd0ba1f1ef8d.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/6e/50/a46e50cd5ac9f67e15ddfd0ba...
- kerblang 7mo ago> what is widely regarded as the album that invented punk This sort of thing becomes endless debate, but I'm still gonna say The Stooges were way ahead of them (yeah, noticed Iggy in one of the article's pictures).
- chaostheory 7mo agoWho buys music these days? A few people might buy LPs but that eats up storage. Streaming doesn’t do very much for the bottom line.
- rodolphoarruda 7mo agoI'm not sure if this an urban legend but, it's cool anyway. The name "Ramones" is an adaptation from "Jamon", Paul Jamon, a fake name Paul Mccartney used in hotel check-ins to avoid stalking fans. So most if not all Ramones members through history changed their last name, family name, to "Ramone" to honor the tradition and be a Remone forever in Rock history. Again, this is cool enough for me on top of the great music they've made.
- greyk47 7mo agoI was talking with a friend who is a promoter and runs a regular dj party kind of thing, not unlike 'boiler room' back in the early days. he makes all his money selling merch. Donald Trump, despite his numerous financial schemes, makes a lot of his money selling shirts, or hats, or phones or credit cards with his name on it. it's probably the only legitimate business operations that he has. it's kinda crazy how, when you boil it all down, so much of the american economy is just selling merch
- languagehacker 7mo agoMan it's really too bad that that's the headline, because it's a great tribute to Arturo Vega, and I don't understand why it has to come at the expense of such a seminal band. If what Eno said about the Velvet Underground is true, then album sales don't account for much in the grand scheme of things anyway.
- bobro 7mo agoMy favorite example of this is Joy Division. They’re the band with that cool white-on-black ridge line plot shirt. If you haven’t listened to their music before, go check it out. You probably won’t like it very much. I don’t know how many records or shirts they sold, but their ratio of shirts sold to records sold has to be one of the wildest.
- guyzero 7mo agoThe bulk of those shirts have got to be pirated, but for a while they were selling them at Bandy Melville, a clothing store whose target demographic has seemingly very little overlap with fans of Joy Division. The ultimate triumph of the signifier over the signified.
- pstuart 7mo agoWell, it was a public domain picture of pulsar, and I remember seeing it in Scientific American before the band used it. I had the shirt, loved it. Had tix to see them on their first tour of the states and then Ian had to go and off himself.
- assface 7mo agoHas anybody recently interviewed Ian Curtis to get his thoughts about their shirt sales?
- smrq 7mo agoI doubt he would have much to say on the subject these days.
- SoftTalker 7mo agoThat's a band I have seen mentioned here on HN quite a bit, but I have never heard of anywhere else. I proably do know a couple of their songs but just in a way that I would say "I've heard that before" not that I would be able to say "oh that's Joy Division."
- luxuryballs 7mo agowell you can’t pirate a t-shirt or hear it on the radio or cover it at a local show, and it’s super easy to make a new t-shirt design compared to an album, maybe I’m overthinking this but it doesn’t seem like a surprising metric, especially for a punk band
- lolive 7mo agoMotörhead and Nirvana are probably in the same situation.
- aussiegreenie 7mo agoI have a 16-year-old daughter, but when she was in Day Care, one of the Chinese kids wore a Ramones t-shirt. I was so surprised that I asked the parents if they had ever heard of the Ramones. They had no idea what I was talking about. In Australia, Kmart (Kmart is very popular here) sells lots of retro rock t-shirts. Often from tours that occurred in the 1970s eg Elon John 1974 tour or Led Zeppelin etc.