The Best Of The Boomtown Rats

If you read my reviews of The Boomtown Rats albums, you will be aware that I took their punk credentials with a huge inch of salt, and indeed, their very originality as a band. I found them to be most derivative - packed full of influences from artists too many to mention once again here (I listed them all in my individual album reviews!) - oh ok, if you insist - Thin Lizzy, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Graham Parker, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed for starters. 

What they definitely were, however, was, for a short while, a great singles band. Their albums were patchy and often underwhelming but Bob Geldof and is mates could pick a 45. 

Deep down in my pocket I find 50p, and here are those great singles (not on this CD in chronological order, perhaps unfortunately) -

Bob Geldof's contrived vocal is clear on the hit single, She's So Modern, which I really liked at the time. It has a hatful of energy and new wave vigour, with some punky riffs, perplexing lyrics and a singalong chorus. It is almost "glam" in many ways. Glam's snotty little cousin. It was a good, energetic single.

Mary Of The 4th Form was the band's second hit and was taken from the band's eponymous debut album, but it is not punk at all. To me it sounds a bit like The Sweet circa 1974-75. It has glam rock merging into heavier rock feel about it. 

To be fair, it has to be said that neither Geldof or the band ever claimed to be punk. Perfectly exemplifying that is The Tonic For The Troops album's tour de force, Rat Trap, the big number one that was hailed as the first "punk number one". That description is certainly stretching it a bit as the song is full of wailing saxophone, Springsteen-esque street rock drama and plenty of Phil Lynott-isms in bot the lyrics and the vocals. For me, this is far of a Thin Lizzy pastiche than the usually-quoted Springsteen one. Either way, it was a truly great single, wasn't it? Probably the group's finest song and it is miles ahead of anything else on its parent album. I loved it back then and I still do. I never tire of it. It certainly created a stir at the time, heralding, in many ways, the moment that punk turned into "new wave". "It's a rat trap - and you've been caught". Quite. A great line, expertly delivered at the right time in the song.

Back to the very beginning now, with the 45 that caught my ears and made them prick up - Lookin' After No. 1 is a totally wonderful, frenetic, classic punk single from its introductory machine gun drum intro. Geldof spits out his dissatisfaction with the world with a true punky ire. It was the only time The Rats were truly punk, but boy what a great punker it was.

To a killer album track now, from 1979's The Fine Art Of Surfacing, the mini-epic When The Night Comes ploughed the same overblown Springsteen-esque "street anthem" furrow as Joey's On The Streets Again and Rat Trap from the two previous albums. 

From the same album came a great single too in the tongue in cheek, anthemic acoustic-driven pop of Someone’s Looking At You. "I was there in the square shooting my mouth off about saving some fish" has Geldof mocking himself over his "save the whale" protests at the time. He knew many viewed him as a pretentious hypocrite. His heart was always in the right place, for me. Protest away, Bob. Someone had to. 

The afore-mentioned Joey's On The Streets Again is an extended, cinematic track. It is packed full to the brim with Springsteen-isms, even down to the bullhorn Clarence Clemons-style saxophone. It is also a copper-bottomed predecessor for the massive hit Rat Trap, vocally, lyrically, musically and stylistically. 

Banana Republic was the 1980 Mondo Bongo album's big hit single and is undoubtedly the best offering on here. It is the Rats' shot at joining in with the white reggae thing that The Police and The Clash had enjoyed success with. It is atmospheric and effective. It is also the only track on its album with remotely decent sound, as if it had been recorded at at a different time, in a different studio (which may well have been the case, as it was a pre-album single). 

From the group's final album, 1984's In The Long Grass, Dave is a bit of a slow-burning undiscovered new wave gem. It was The Rats' last big hurrah and nobody knows it much, which is a shame. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess. It's a good song.

The really big one. The group scored a huge number one hit with the mass shooting-inspired I Don't Like Mondays and, by late 1979, "new wave" was de rigeur, as opposed to punk, so there was precious little of the latter found here. In fact there was none. This was where the Rats finally threw off their "punk" credentials for good. It was certainly not a punk single, neither was it, in my opinion, much of a new wave one. It is an impossible to categorise oddity. What a great one, though.

Back to 1978 now. Like Clockwork was a quirky hit single that was quite difficult to categorise. It has a strange staccato beat, some Stones-New York Dolls vocals and even some ABBA-style keyboards in places. It certainly wasn't punk, and not really new wave either. For me, it reminds me of Sparks in both its Russell Mael vocals at times and its madcap musical characteristics.

From the same Tonic For The Troops album came (I Never Loved) Eva Braun, which is something of an oddity, a bizarre song sung from Adolf Hitler's point of view. It features European-style ABBA keyboards and a quirky, jerky rock beat. Both musically and lyrically it doesn't seem to know what it is all about and doesn't do it for me. The breakneck, supposedly "punky' bit in the middle just annoys me. At times I think it is promising, at other points I just think it is a mess. Sorry.

Recorded in 1977, Neon Heart has a cowbell and chunky guitar riff sound and a Lou Reed meets the New York Dolls vocal. This stuff isn't punk, even though the band found their way on to the back of the punk bandwagon and had "Rats" in their name. This is glammy, riffy rock. Not that it isn't enjoyable. It is. Very much so. In many ways, The Rats were musically much better than your average punk band. So, there's a big positive for you.

Never In A Million Years, from 1982's V Deep album, is listenable-ish and generally ok, it is simply nothing special. 1979's sad, evocative tale of a suicide in Diamond Smiles has long been a big favourite of mine, though.

It's 1984 again now, with the very late seventies Rats-esque single Drag Me Down, featuring a catchy "de-de-de-de" vocal bit. This would have been fine in 1979, but somehow by 1984 it sounded a bit out of time. I can't help but like it, despite that, and I liked it at the time. Amidst all the Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet I felt that my old new favourites were back - I was a shameless nostalgist, even at 24-25. 

A track from the 1977 debut album, I Can Make It If You Can has Geldof sounding like Steve Harley on 1973's Sebastian. It even quotes Springsteen from Thunder Road in its "screen door slams" line too. It also sounds so much like The Rolling Stones on 1974's It's Only Rock 'n' Roll album. So many influences in there, huh?

The Elephant's Graveyard was a minor hit single and is one of the Mondo Bongo album's better tracks, with Geldof doing his affected Graham Parker-style voice (but nowhere near as good as Parker's). Indeed he almost sounds as if he is losing his voice on the "guilty till proven guilty..." chorus part. 

Fall Down is a plaintive piano-backed ballad that shows up Geldof's limited voice no end. It is a bit of a low point to end on. I think this collection would have functioned so much better sequenced chronologically. Then the development and change in style The Rats went through would be easier to track. 

Anyway, that's it from me - the world owes me a living....