The Five Lamp boys were coming on strong

Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.

14/01/79 : A Tonic For The Troops - The Boomtown Rats


Our second visit with The Boomtown Rats in the year - due to Bob's somewhat increased profile in later years, I forget they were quite as popular as they were. I'm expecting this to be pretty similar to our last visit, but who knows with them crazy Irish fellas?

Yeah, it's not far off - last time I mentioned The Cars and Talking Heads as touchpoints, but you've definitely got more than a sprinkling of Elvis Costello in here as well this time. I recognised "Rat Trap" and "Like Clockwork" but the songs rattle on by so quickly there's no danger of boredom and the musicianship is tighter than I was expecting. I feel I'm unlikely to revisit it, but I quite enjoyed it on first listen.

We're at #13 in the charts this week on its 15th week of a 23 week run - which sounds pretty decent, but that was actually its second run, with it having previously spent thirteen weeks in the chart in mid '78, peaking at #8 and it also came back for three more runs, spending a total of 44 weeks in the chart. The top five this week were Don't Walk - Boogie, Elvis Costello (a new entry), best-ofs from The Carpenters and Showaddywaddy and Boney M, with the next highest new entry being the Action Replay compilation (#35 - and somehow it got to #1). 

Wikipedia tells us this is their second album and it "featured dark themes in an often upbeat, pop-punk style". And that's about it really, although I don't think I ever knew that "Rat Trap" made it to #1. The critics were pretty nice about it, with even our old mate Robert Christgau declaring that while it "does turn rather campy at times... it will certainly do" - high praise indeed. Commercially, it didn't exactly set the world alight but I suspect they were pretty happy making it as high as #112 in the US. 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent copy for a couple of quid but a Japanese version (complete with obi) is going to set you back £38.60 - along with shipping charges of £51.87! I'd struggle to say it's worth that much, but there's certainly a couple of quids worth of entertainment to be had here - I found it much more enjoyable than I was expecting.

07/01/79 - Pretty forgettable
21/01/79 - Two fine tracks at least

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