Reviews

The Boomtown Rats / First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory, reviewed

By David Quantick

By david quantick

Comments

30

Has there ever been a band so popular and yet so forgotten as The Boomtown Rats? They had a string of hits, including two number one singles (one of which knocked ‘Summer Nights’ off the top), a memorable front man in Bob Geldof, and a career which spanned punk and new wave for almost half a decade. Yet there are very few people who will admit to being fans, they never get the attention that other bands of the era get, and they were at best tolerated by critics and at worst loathed (on the eve of Live Aid, the New Musical Express ran a “Top Ten Best Boomtown Rats” list: it was blank).

Some people say it was the enormous presence of Live Aid that overwhelmed the Rats’ career: but by 1985, the band had had their day, and their appearance at Wembley as part of Live Aid was little to with their current chart presence and everything to do with a general feeling of “well, they deserve it after all Bob’s done” (while U2 and Queen and other bands saw their chart success explode after the concert, the same cannot be said for the Boomtown Rats). Others claim that the Rats remain unloved because in some ways Bob Geldof was a divisive sort of pop star: while he was intelligent, and witty, and compelling to both watch and listen to, he seemed to lack the easy charm of a Bono or a Jagger: his persona was perfect for berating a crowd (or a government) but less suited for winning over an audience with a smile and a wink.  Whatever the reason, the Rats remain one of the few – perhaps the only – band who never seemed able to coast along on fan love and nostalgia. Their various comebacks in the 21st century have been largely unheralded and uncelebrated.

However, as this new compilation shows, this is a great pity. There were a number of reasons that The Boomtown Rats were hugely successful, and first and foremost among them was the music. True, they may not have been Proper Punks, but then neither were any of the late ’70s waves of snotty guitar bands –  The Jam, The Stranglers, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe – who all had deep roots in the music of the recentish past: and at least the Rats in their earlier days made some concessions to the new sound, with energetic punky singles like ‘Looking After No. 1’, ‘She’s So Modern’ and the of-its-time ‘Mary Of The 4th Form’ (all of them given a chart shine-up by future Def Leppard and Shania Train producer Robert “Mutt” Lang).

The Rats were, like most of their contemporaries, quick to abandon the blunder and lightning of punk: in a very short space of time, they evolved into an inventive singles act too musically smart to be confined by three chords. After the new wave herky jerky of ‘Like Clockwork’ (Steve Harley meets XTC), they released two genuinely astonishing singles, which both went to number one. The first was the Springsteen-style five minute avalanche of ‘Rat Trap’: a mini rock opera set among the tower blocks of Dublin which contained lyrics like “Hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors / And pus and grime ooze from its scab crusted sores” and – despite having no chorus until its final minutes – was catchy, furious and brilliant (and typically, when the band went on Top Of The Pops the week it topped the chart, Geldof ripped up a photo of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John on camera. That learned them).

It was followed, incredibly, by one of the most daring hit singles of all time: a now-prophetic song based on a news story about a school shooting in the USA. In a chart full of disco, new wave, and rock, ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ stood out like anything: a jagged, unsettled song featuring just piano, orchestra and vocals, it was the kind of song that, had it been by Elvis Costello, would have been in critics’ top tens for centuries. And it went to number one. There are no songs like ‘I Don’t Mondays’: its bleak theme contrasts brilliantly with Johnnie Fingers’ music box piano playing, while its lyric sympathises, not with the victims but with the shooter.

Nobody could have followed it up with more of the same and the band didn’t, instead doing what any sane chart group would do and broadening out their sound in a more conventional direction. Hits like ‘Diamond Smiles’ (“On a night like this I deserve to get kissed / At least once or twice”) and ‘Someone’s Looking At You’ were amped-up new wave with more than a hint of Cockney Rebel and occupied a more glamorous yet still hard-eyed world than the early records. They were followed by the catchy but as ever cynical ‘Banana Republic’, a white reggae song that was also a bilious attack on Geldof’s homeland, riddled with “police and priests”. It was, again, an unlikely subject for a hit single, and it went to number three.

And then the public, apparently, just got bored with the Rats. Subsequent singles were grandiose (‘The Elephants Graveyard’), moody (‘Dave’) or just anonymous (‘House On Fire’). Live Aid happened, the band split up, Geldof had a solo career, and in 2020 the band reformed and released ‘Citizens of Boomtown’: the singles were fine and stompy, and that was that – until The First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory, a 27-track compilation whose title is fighting talk and whose content really does show the breadth and the brilliance of The Boomtown Rats.        

Singles apart, there’s the insane and self-explanatory ‘(I Never Loved) Eva Braun’, one of the very few toe-tappers written from the point of view of Hitler, the perfect Springsteen (again) of ‘Joey’s On The Street Again’, as well as the nostalgic stomp of ‘Trash Glam Baby’, the jaunty ‘K.I.S.S.’ and the FM catchy ‘Me And Howard Hughes’: a cornucopia of great songs full of spit and spit, experience and energy, from possibly the most under-rated hit group of all time.

Review by David Quantick. The First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory is out today.

Tracklisting

The Boomtown Rats / First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory

The First Fifty Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory The Boomtown Rats /

    • CD 1
      1. Looking After No. 1 (from The Boomtown Rats)
      2. I.S.S (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      3. Me And Howard Hughes (from A Tonic For The Troops)
      4. Here’s A Postcard (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      5. Dave (from In The Long Grass)
      6. Drag Me Down (from In The Long Grass)
      7. Rat Trap (from A Tonic For The Troops)
      8. Someone’s Looking At You (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
      9. Banana Republic (from Mondo Bongo)
      10. Keep It Up (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
      11. Diamond Smiles (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
      12. When The Night Comes (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
      13. Mary Of The Fourth Form (from The Boomtown Rats)
    • CD 2
      1. There’s No Tomorrow Like Today (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      2. The Elephants Graveyard (from Mondo Bongo)
      3. She’s So Modern (from A Tonic For The Troops)
      4. (I Never Loved) Eva Braun (from A Tonic For The Troops)
      5. Trash Glam Baby (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      6. House On Fire (from V Deep)
      7. The Boomtown Rats! (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      8. Tonight (from In The Long Grass)
      9. Like Clockwork (from A Tonic For The Troops)
      10. Neon Heart (from The Boomtown Rats)
      11. Up All Night (from V Deep)
      12. Monster Monkeys (from Citizens Of Boomtown)
      13. I Don’t Like Mondays (from The Fine Art Of Surfacing)
      14. Joey’s On The Street Again (from The Boomtown Rats)

SuperDeluxeEdition.com helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.

Related Content

30 Comments

Subscribe
Notify of
30 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments