Album Review: Shonen Knife – ‘Osaka Ramones’

A reasonable attempt at a cover album

Hard to believe that frivolous Japanese ladies [a]Shonen Knife[/a] have now been a band for 30 years. It took them a decade before wider recognition reached them (thanks largely to the patronage of Kurt Cobain), and playing buzzsaw punk-pop about cats and dessert for three decades requires Herculean dedication. It means they’ve been in the game for eight years longer than their chief influence, the [a]Ramones[/a], managed. A perfect excuse to toast themselves and their progenitors with 13 Ramones covers, which sound exactly like you’d expect. For better or worse, Naoko Yamano doesn’t quite capture the chilling ruination of heroin addiction when she sings ‘Chinese Rock’.

Noel Gardner

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