Subterranean Jungle

Subterranean Jungle is the seventh studio album by the American punk rock band Ramones, released by Sire Records on February 28, 1983. Overall, the album featured a return to a somewhat more hard punk rock style compared to the band's previous two albums End of the Century in 1980, and Pleasant Dreams in 1981, which were the most pop-focused of the band's career. This direction was encouraged by guitarist Johnny Ramone. The recording sessions saw disputes between band members, mainly due to struggles with alcohol addiction by Joey Ramone and Marky Ramone, and the drug addiction of Dee Dee Ramone.

The album begins with two cover songs, and features a third on side two. The band's signature punk rock is supplemented by touches of hard rock, and psychedelic rock. The album was deemed by critics to be a return to the band's roots, and received mostly positive reviews. Subterranean Jungle peaked at number 83 on the US Billboard 200, but failed to chart internationally. The singles released from the album did not chart. This is the last album by the band to feature Marky Ramone on drums until the 1989 album Brain Drain. It is the first album by the band to feature lead vocals from someone other than Joey Ramone, with Dee Dee Ramone singing lead on "Time Bomb", as well as the bridge of "Outsider".

Compared to their previous two albums, Subterranean Jungle marked a shift back to the band's punk rock roots. Johnny Ramone felt as though the band needed to "be focused and stop worrying about getting played [on the radio] and just make a good record." Lead singer Joey Ramone was given less stylistic freedom than on the previous two releases, and the album was shaped mostly by Johnny's preference for harder rocking material.

I guess I felt a little short-changed before. I was just writin' a lotta diverse stuff and maybe I felt I was gonna get restricted, I dunno [sic]. Now that we've done it and we've been playing around for about a month, though, we're unanimous. 'Cause it has that real edge again, it has a real powerful sound—somethin' we lost a little on the last two albums.

Three of the four members of the band, Johnny being the exception, were facing issues with addiction. Both Joey and drummer Marky Ramone were dealing with alcoholism, while bassist Dee Dee Ramone was severely addicted to cocaine and was undergoing psychotherapeutic treatment. Since the Ramones' previous two releases had producers which proved disappointing to the members, they were skeptical of the producer for Subterranean Jungle, Ritchie Cordell. Marky relates: "I hated the production, I hated the producer."

The artwork for Subterranean Jungle features an image of the band inside a subway car. The photograph was taken by George DuBose at the subway station on 57th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. This cover concept was designed by Dubose, who suggested that since the B Sixth Avenue Express train stopped at the empty station for about 20 minutes. In the photograph, Marky is featured peering out the subway window—Marky was positioned this way after Johnny asked DuBose to do so, because "they were kicking him out of the band, but he didn't know it yet." Marky recalled that he "liked that shot, but [he] knew something was up."

I was lying on my bed, watching Kojak when Joey calls me and says, 'Mark, I feel bad about this, but, uh, you can't be in the band anymore.' I deserved it. Joey was okay about it, but the others, forget it. No one called me after that. If it was today, Joey would've said, 'Why don't we take off for a month and you get sober?' But I didn't want to tell Joey or the band about my being in rehab, because I would've been admitting my guilt.

— Marky Ramone