NewsThe Boomtown Rats / First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory
2CD & 2LP Best Of coincides with anniversary tour
The Boomtown Rats are to release a 2CD and 2LP ‘Best Of’ compilation to mark 50 years since the band first formed.
Out in September, The First Fifty Years: Songs Of Boomtown Glory features 27 songs on CD and 24 on vinyl, with ‘Keep It Up’, ‘House On Fire’ and ‘Tonight’ the additional CD-only tracks. The compilation spans all seven of The Boomtown Rats’ albums, including 2020’s comeback Citizens Of Boomtown, but there is no new material.
It’s the first official greatest hits since Back To Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits reached No 35 in 2013. That coincided with the band’s reunion, having split in 1986, almost exactly a year after Live Aid. Citizens Of Boomtown has been their only album of new songs since, though they continue to regularly play live: a 50th anniversary tour runs from 10 October to 15 November.
The tracklisting is notable for featuring six songs from Citizens Of Boomtown, compared to just two each from Mondo Bongo (1981) and V Deep (1982), albums the band were known to be dissatisfied with before rallying on 1984’s In The Long Grass.
The singles not included on the new compilation are ‘Go Man Go’ from Mondo Bongo; ‘Never In A Million Years’ and ‘Charmed Lives’ from V Deep; and ‘A Hold Of Me’ from In The Long Grass. Of those, only ‘Never In A Million Years’ reached the Top 75, albeit a lowly No 62.
The First Fifty Years: Songs Of Boomtown Glory will be released on 19 September 2025, via UMR/Mercury.
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The Boomtown Rats
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Tracklisting
The First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory The Boomtown Rats /
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CD 1
- Looking After No. 1 (from The Boomtown Rats)
- I.S.S (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- Me And Howard Hughes (from A Tonic For The Troops)
- Here’s A Postcard (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- Dave (from In The Long Grass)
- Drag Me Down (from In The Long Grass)
- Rat Trap (from A Tonic For The Troops)
- Someone’s Looking At You (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
- Banana Republic (from Mondo Bongo)
- Keep It Up (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
- Diamond Smiles (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
- When The Night Comes (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
- Mary Of The Fourth Form (from The Boomtown Rats)
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CD 2
- There’s No Tomorrow Like Today (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- The Elephants Graveyard (from Mondo Bongo)
- She’s So Modern (from A Tonic For The Troops)
- (I Never Loved) Eva Braun (from A Tonic For The Troops)
- Trash Glam Baby (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- House On Fire (from V Deep)
- The Boomtown Rats! (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- Tonight (from In The Long Grass)
- Like Clockwork (from A Tonic For The Troops)
- Neon Heart (from The Boomtown Rats)
- Up All Night (from V Deep)
- Monster Monkeys (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
- I Don’t Like Mondays (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
- Joey’s On The Street Again (from The Boomtown Rats)
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CD 1
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