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The Boomtown Rats achieved reasonable success if one considers the hazards of getting involved in a band in the first place. Two British number one singles, a string of top twenty singles, generally considered a good band by the critics, four top twenty albums and six albums which always maintained a good standard if a slight dip here and there. They didn't outstay their welcome so there's always the feeling of wanting a little more rather than being satiated with substandard materiel. To me the music still sounds fresh and exciting and vital- I don't overplay it so when I do listen I find myself thinking yes this is really good- and sometimes surprisingly so. The Boomtown Rats never became a huge stadium act, or became bloated in a "If its Tuesday it must be Tulsa " kind of way. Even their personal lives never became the subject of any major drug scandals so they kept a reasonably clean machine. So I suppose looking back they can be proud of their achievements if one looks at the dangers of the music business and all that can go wrong.
Even their personal lives never became the subject of any major drug scandals so they kept a reasonably clean machine. So I suppose looking back they can be proud of their achievements if one looks at the dangers of the music business and all that can go wrong.
I suspect Geldof may disagree with the issues around his personal life.
Though they were a great band and made some wonderful records they have been airbrushed out of the whole Punk/New Wave tale. The Jam and The Clash often lauded as the most successful bands of the 1976-1979 era in fact weren't especially popular nor successful until the dawn of the eighties, whilst the Rats pretty much outgunned all their peers bar Blondie, The Police and The Stranglers. The long running feud with NME didn't help, but critics generally panned the Rats, and the comments on Geldof and Yates were incredibly vicious.
As time has gone on, I find the Rats music more durable and listening to the likes of Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs around five years ago, The Rats weren't a million miles away from any of them in what they did.
I think six or so albums is almost always enough for any band. Any less (Pistols/Stone Roses/Teardrop Explodes) and you feel short changed. Much more (U2/Stranglers) and you feel they have outstayed their welcome.
Blondie, Pulp, Blur, The Jam, The Clash, Happy Mondays all did about six LPs. They came conquered and pissed off before boredom set in! (ignoring the inevitable reunion)
Even their personal lives never became the subject of any major drug scandals so they kept a reasonably clean machine. So I suppose looking back they can be proud of their achievements if one looks at the dangers of the music business and all that can go wrong.
I suspect Geldof may disagree with the issues around his personal life.
Though they were a great band and made some wonderful records they have been airbrushed out of the whole Punk/New Wave tale. The Jam and The Clash often lauded as the most successful bands of the 1976-1979 era in fact weren't especially popular nor successful until the dawn of the eighties, whilst the Rats pretty much outgunned all their peers bar Blondie, The Police and The Stranglers. The long running feud with NME didn't help, but critics generally panned the Rats, and the comments on Geldof and Yates were incredibly vicious.
As time has gone on, I find the Rats music more durable and listening to the likes of Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs around five years ago, The Rats weren't a million miles away from any of them in what they did.
I think six or so albums is almost always enough for any band. Any less (Pistols/Stone Roses/Teardrop Explodes) and you feel short changed. Much more (U2/Stranglers) and you feel they have outstayed their welcome.
Blondie, Pulp, Blur, The Jam, The Clash, Happy Mondays all did about six LPs. They came conquered and pissed off before boredom set in! (ignoring the inevitable reunion)
I think rock critics are overrated and self important and sometimes I wonder if I'm listening to the same album. They recently praises the Horrors album Primary Colours to high heaven - the music was pretty ok but the lyrics were the most awful sub-literate pretentious nonsense I've ever heard as if these guys had never read a book in their lives but NME never once mentioned the lyrics and their baffeling content. It was the same with MGMT -dreadful baffling lyrics which mean nothing but NME never refers to this. Bring back Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machiene- now that Jimbob could write lyrics and songs. People get to hear a lot more music now before the purchase so the chinstrokers in NME have lost their power but I did learn some big words when I used to read it in the old days!
I think rock critics are overrated and self important and sometimes I wonder if I'm listening to the same album....
... People get to hear a lot more music now before the purchase so the chinstrokers in NME have lost their power but I did learn some big words when I used to read it in the old days!
I go on and off the NME. Sometimes it's great (say 1993-1998; 2002-2006), but also it can be poor. I tended to read Melody Maker/Sounds back in the late seventies, and read Q from about 1990-1993. As for the eighties, it's all like a bad dream, and safe to say I have just written them off as far as music was concerned. Until The Stone Roses/Happy Mondays arrived, I really had tuned out (not sure I attended a gig, bar the Student Union ones from 1982-1989), and was just listening to my seventies records. Fortunately the nineties were absolutely brilliant!
