Citizens of Boomtown The Boomtown Rats

• 1 Trash Glam Baby 03:53
• 2 Sweet Thing 03:11
• 3 Monster Monkeys 04:25
• 4 She Said No 03:55
• 5 Passing Through 04:35
• 6 Here's a Postcard 03:52
• 7 K.I.S.S. 03:10
• 8 Rock 'n' Roll Yé Yé 04:54
• 9 Get a Grip 03:59
• 10 The Boomtown Rats 05:19
• Total Runtime 41:13

Info for Citizens of Boomtown

The Boomtown Rats will release Citizens of Boomtown, their first new studio album in 36 years this March, on the same day a new book of lyrics and reminiscences by lead singer Bob Geldof entitled Tales Of Boomtown Glory is published.

The Boomtown Rats’ first new studio album for 36 years, ‘Citizens Of Boomtown’ features 10 glorious new Boomtown Rats songs and will be released on March 13th ’20 on the BMG label. Produced by Rats bassist Pete Briquette. The first single ‘Trash Glam Baby’, a beautifully sleazy rocker, will be released on 10th January ’20.

On the same day as the album release (13th March ’20) Faber Music will publish a new book by Bob Geldof. Tales of Boomtown Glory is a collection of the complete lyrics from Geldof’s Boomtown Rats and 7 solo albums, accompanied by an introduction and 28 song stories written by Geldof, with exclusive scans from his notebooks over the years. The stories provide a witty and honest account of the background, inspiration and context of the songs. Lyrics to the 189 songs include previously unreleased material as well as the new songs on ‘Citizens Of Boomtown’.

Also slated for a release early next year is a documentary film by Billy McGrath, a long term confidant of Bob and the band which will tell their extraordinary story through a mix of interviews and previously unseen personal archive – from their inception in Dun Laoghaire, through their role in the punk wars, the hits, the drama, Live Aid, and right up to the present day.

Formed in 1975 in Dublin The Boomtown Rats became part of the burgeoning punk scene. Singer Bob Geldof’s defiant motormouth arrogance and flagrant disrespect for authority endeared him and his band to every youth who felt weighed down by the heavy handed blandishments of church and state. In the UK The Boomtown Rats first toured with the Ramones and Talking Heads, rocking and mocking the status quo alongside the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and The Stranglers. They became one of the biggest bands of the late 70s/80s with a string of top ten hits and platinum albums, earning them Brit Awards and Ivor Novellos. Making history as the first Irish band to have a UK no 1 hit with ‘Rat Trap’, they went on to top the charts in 32 Countries (including Australia) with ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ and racked up 6 era-defining albums: ‘The Boomtown Rats’ (’77), ‘A Tonic For The Troops’ (’78), ‘The Fine Art Of Surfacing’ (’79), ‘Mondo Bongo’ (’80), ‘V Deep’ (’82) and ‘In The Long Grass’ (’84). In 1984, inspired by a TV report on the famine in Ethiopia, Bob Geldof organized the star-studded Band Aid and co-wrote “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” one of the biggest-selling singles in history. The next year he organised Live Aid.

Bob Geldof, vocals, guitar
Garry Roberts, guitar
Pete Briquette, bass
Simon Crowe, drums

Produced by Pete Briquette

The Boomtown Rats
were originally a legend, whispered on the winds of ancient Ireland over countless millennia. From those whispers, a thousand incantations amalgamating in the airwaves above and the puckered lips of Ireland's youth, that legend entered the hearts and souls of six human beings; Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette, Garry Roberts, Simon Crowe, Johnnie Fingers and Gerry Cott. ​

These men would embody that legend, allowing it to consume them in all its glory. ​

Alas, and in homage to the whispering gods of olde, the group took The Boomtown Rats in name and spirit, setting the stage for themselves, the citizens of Boomtown and the pathologically bored. ​

Their noisemakers filled the ears of hundreds, thousands and then millions. People listened, people sang and people danced. ​

For decades, they powered through the trashiness of yesteryear until they could take it no more.

Had they wronged the Boomtown Gods? ​

Utterly broken, four of the chosen ones reunited years later with the weight of the Boomtown burden resting precariously on their shoulders. ​

One gig after another, the foursome pounded away at the hearts of the naysayers until, once again, the Boomtown Rat and its foundations were firmly re-rooted in the soils of modern times.

This album contains no booklet.