7 inch singles collection: The Boomtown Rats - Diamond Smiles

Bringing us the glamorous side of suicide..

THE BOOMTOWN RATS

A-Side: Diamond Smiles
B-Side: Late Last Night
(Ensign 1979)      

Back to The Boomtown Rats then, and I'm not sure that I've got anything more to add to what I said about them last time they cropped up, which is probably just as well, as I wrote more than intended to about the Beach Boys in my last entry. So I'll gloss over any more preamble and get down to the business of this blog. 

Diamond Smiles is record that I really liked when I first got it. I played it a lot, it's got a staccato feel, Bob's voice goes from a sneer that is distant and disapproving commentary on events, to become something more involved and passionate over the progression of the song. It was only after many. many listens that it actually clicked what the subject matter of the song was. It is, if you didn't know, about a young woman who, seemingly fed up with life commits suicide. Is this a good choice for a catchy pop song? Well why not - taboos are made to be broken, and highlighting the issue of suicide amongst the disaffected youth by singing about it is as good a way to bring the issues under a mainstream spotlight as any other. On the other hand much of the rest of the lyrics seem to be about the style over substance of the burgeoning yuppie culture - a perfectly acceptable target. What this means, though is that this song is neither an in depth look at either subject, and so fails to have the necessary depth to make it hard-hitting on either issue. This is entirely fair enough - it is just a piece of pop music after all - but I get the feeling that Geldolf is wanting us to sit up and notice the objects of his anger. It doesn't quite work, yet, but, as we all know, he does eventually channel his righteous fury into something that millions of people take notice of.

The flipside, Late Last Night, is as generic a Boomtown Rats b-side as you could expect. If you know what the band sounds like, you can probably guess what this song is like. It's an upbeat piece of power punk pop. The words are about a nightmare, although any scares that could be put in the song are undercut by a line about "something I ate". It sounds like they're going for creepy but failing to get there. There's nothing else particularly distinctive about this song.

I still enjoy this record and still think that Diamond Smiles is a good song, but maybe I don't love it as much as I did once. Suicide is a complex and important issue that needs to discussed more openly, however this blog whic is meant to be trivial and lighthearted is probably not the place to that. Nevertheless, as an act of public service I'd like to say that if you are reading this blog and having been having suicidal feelings please, please, please go and talk to some one about it - it's the first step in a long and difficult journey, but it's a step in the right direction and less irrevocable than the alternative.

Next time something Scandinavian...

7 Inch Singles Collection: Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic

Should white men play reggae?

BOOMTOWN RATS

A-side: Banana Republic

B-Side: Man At The Top

(Ensign 1980)

I alluded to my opinion that Bob Geldolf is capable of making good records in my review of the Band Aid record. As if to back up this opinion I have a number of Boomtown Rats singles, of which this is the first to come up. 

For a while, back in the day, there was a bit of a reverse snobbish attitude to Boomtown Rates - many fans and critics of punk/post-punk would tend to dismiss them out of hand as not being authentic, or not quite up to being as good as other similar bands. I don't know how prevalent this attitude is today, (and, frankly, I don't care), because it's a pretty poor show. I think the problem really stems from the fact that, unlike many more critically acclaimed acts, had commerciality on their side. They knew how to make records that lots of people would buy and listen to and would get played on the radio. I'm not sure what's wrong with that.

I remember clearly first hearing/seeing Banana Republic on Saturday morning Kids TV. It caught my attention then because it felt different and lightly askew from some of the other lighter pop fare that was normally on the menu of such shows. On Banana Republic the Rats flirt with a reggae sounds - many post-punk bands were doing so at the time. Sometimes it worked, other times it was a little more ill-advised. I think that this song falls just about on the right side of that line, in that the reggae is influential rather that pervasive in the sound. (Not that pervasive reggae isn't great when performed by habitual reggae performers). Initially the record lures you in with a slow, soft lovers rock sounds, which suddenly turns dark, when the lyrics start taking about high level institutional corruption among the likes of "police and priests". The music is slightly cheesy but I believe that's there as a deliberate counterpoint to the darkness of the lyrics, mirroring how the dark underbelly of many of the regimes sung about are hiding under a garish tourist-friendly facade. I really liked this song when I first encountered it in 1980, even though I was too young to understand it, I still do like it, but the version in my head is a lot fiercer than what I just heard on the record. So much so that my first reaction on this re-listen was: "Was that it? Surely this used to be better than that".  That's the passage of time for you.

Often on b-sides bands get to experiment a bit more and throw new ideas around a bit. Man At The Top feels very much like that's what Boomtown Rats are doing. It's punkier than the a-side, and has a stronger piano intro with a leading bassline. It feels choppy and mixed up - like bits of different ideas have all been put together in one song, and it's all being held together by one bassline. The lyrics feels squashed into the song - there's very little in the way of melody to catch the ear and hook the listener in.

Overall an OK record that I expected much more of.

Next time some grunge nerds...