It’s honest to say expectations had been excessive for The Boomtown Rats’ third album The High quality Artwork Of Surfacing. Having first damaged via with the U.Ok. High 5 hit “Looking After No.1” in the summertime of 1977, the Irish sextet’s recognition constructed steadily and their acclaimed fifth single “Rat Trap” turned the primary 45 by a punk or new wave act to prime the U.Ok. chart within the fall of 1978.
Nonetheless, whereas “Rat Trap”s father or mother album A Tonic for the Troops additionally went platinum within the U.Ok., its quick follow-up The High quality Artwork Of Surfacing raised the band’s Stateside profile after a tragic actual life occasion impressed frontman Bob Geldof to jot down its signature hit “I Don’t Like Mondays.” On a promo tour within the U.S., Geldof was at a radio station in Georgia when he heard {that a} 16-year-old pupil had shot two folks lifeless and injured quite a few others throughout an incident at a faculty in California. Because the horrific story unfolded, Geldof heard {the teenager} clarify that her major motive had seemingly been an intense dislike of Mondays.
“I was doing a radio interview with [keyboardist] Johnnie Fingers and there was a telex machine beside me,” Geldof instructed Smash Hits journal in October 1979. “I read [the story] as it came out. Not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in is a bit strange.”
In the identical Smash Hits interview, Geldof harassed the tune “wasn’t an attempt to exploit tragedy,” but the emotive, piano-framed “I Don’t Like Mondays” struck a chord with the broader public. It turned the Rats’ solely US High 75 hit, and the tune topped the U.Ok. chart, turning into the primary of three main hits taken from The High quality Artwork Of Surfacing.
Launched in October 1979, the album itself was produced with energy and readability by Robert “Mutt” Lange (later to helm traditional titles by AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Shania Twain) and it captured a few of the Rats’ most formidable and finely-crafted songs. “Diamond Smiles” and the sturdy “Someone’s Looking At You” each adopted “I Don’t Like Mondays” into the U.Ok. High 20, although, on reflection, most of its tracks may simply have succeeded as spin-off singles.
Lyrically, Geldof was on the peak of his powers. His caustic wordplay was particularly vivid on the religion-related “Nice N Neat” and the widescreen, Springsteen-esque drama of “When The Night Comes,” however his method was all the time revolutionary and thought-provoking. Certainly, his phrases on the paranoid “Someone’s Looking At You” and “Having My Picture Taken” (the latter imagining the long run world of social media) sound prescient right now.
As a document stacked with such an array of notable tracks, The High quality Artwork Of Surfacing was all the time in with likelihood on the charts, however finally it exceeded expectations. Its U.Ok. High 10 putting was anticipated, however it additionally offered strongly within the U.S. and Canada. The album proved to be the band’s industrial zenith, however even when it’s judged purely on inventive benefit, The High quality Artwork Of Surfacing stays a particularly excessive watermark within the Boomtown Rats’ wider profession.
Take heed to The High quality Artwork of Surfacing by The Boomtown Rats now.
