Much maligned by the press at the time, the Boomtown Rats, lead by Bob Geldof had a not inconsiderable amount of success in their decade between 1976 and 1986. They’re best remembered for ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ – one of two no.1 singles, but they had a whole lot of great tunes, and ‘Mondays wasn’t necessarily typical of what they were about, either. They rode the coattails of the punk movement, and Geldof wasn’t afraid of pointing out the hypocrisy of certain bands from the movement. It rankled with him that The Clash (or Joe Strummer at least) were from posher backgrounds than they made out, and he clearly didn’t have much truck with the concept of ‘selling out.’
As you’re almost undoubtedly aware, the band folded when Geldof set up both Band Aid and Live Aid, before working in the world of TV production and doing a lot of work for charity and famine relief. The band are now back together and October 21 will see all of their six studio albums re-issued – The Boomtown Rats (1977), A Tonic For The Troops (1978), The Fine Art Of Surfacing (1979), Mondo Bongo (1980), V Deep (1982) and The Fine Art Of Surfacing (1984).
So just to whet your appetite, here’s a track from each:
From The Boomtown Rats ‘Looking After Number One’
From A Tonic For The Troops ‘Like Clockwork’
From The Fine Art Of Surfacing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’
From Mondo Bongo ‘Banana Republic’
From V Deep ‘House On Fire’
From In The Long Grass ‘Dave’