BEST POP LPS

I must disagree with Hilburn’s assessment of the history of the “punk movement.”

The rise of punk music in England was inspired on our shores and spread to Britain, not vice versa (not unlike the British invasion of 1963-65).

The alternative club scene was flourishing (at CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City, the Village Gate, etc.) with bands such as the Ramones, Blondie, Television, Pere Ubu (a Cleveland import), Talking Heads, Dictators, etc., in 1975.

The Ramones first album was released in the spring of 1976 (more than a year before “Bollocks,” late summer, 1977) and, in my view, should be considered the landmark album that inspired the “punk movement” of the late ‘70s.

The Ramones set the standards for the music that was to follow--short, snappy songs, an aggressive stage presence and a feeling that anyone could make this sort of music. I consider it a major omission in Hilburn’s simplistic account that the Ramones were not even mentioned when they are a seminal part of the foundation of the “punk movement.”

STEVEN AROZENA

Pasadena