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| TRACKLIST |
| 1. Someone's Looking At You . . . . . . . . . .4:24 2. Diamond Smiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3:52 3. Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero) . . . . . . .4:38 4. Having My Picture Taken. . . . . . . . . . .3:20 5. Sleep (Fingers Lullaby). . . . . . . . . . .4:16 6. I Don't Like Mondays . . . . . . . . . . . .4:19 7. Nothing Happened Today . . . . . . . . . . .3:20 8. Keep It Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3:40 9. Nice n Neat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2:51 10. When the Night Comes . . . . . . . . . . . .4:46 11. Episode #3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1:11 12. Real Different - B-side. . . . . . . . . . .3:16 13. How Do You Do? - B-side. . . . . . . . . . .2:41 14. Late Last Night - B-side . . . . . . . . . .2:44 15. Nothing Happened Today - Live in Cardiff . .3:45 |
Line Up:
Pete Briquette - Bass, Vocals
Gerry Cott - Guitar
Simon Crowe - Drums, Vocals
Johnnie Fingers - Keyboards, Vocals
Bob Geldof - Saxophone, Vocals
Garry Roberts - Guitar, Vocals
| QUOTE |
| Review by Mike DeGagne (AMG) Chock-full of new wave charisma and tamed by Bob Geldof's upfront wit, The Fine Art of Surfacing is novel in both its lyrical flair and modern pounce. Made famous by the colorful history of "I Don't Like Mondays," a true story about a 13-year-old girl who shot 11 people without showing any remorse, The Fine Art of Surfacing switches gears from this song's well-crafted harshness to the hectic pace of tracks such as "Nice N' Neat" and "Sleep," among others. "Diamond Smiles" jaunts along on a hiccup-like rhythm, while "Keep It Up" is downright frantic. "Someone's Looking at You" basks in a certain type of smug paranoia, and songs like "Having My Picture Taken" and "Nothing Happened Today" are beautifully lit up by Geldof's wide-eyed dramatics and explicit vocal swings. Sharing the same sort of stylishness as A Tonic for the Troops, The Fine Art of Surfacing bursts with florid pop genius, which in turn kept the Boomtown Rats from sounding like other new wave bands that existed at the time. ------------------------------------------------ Review by Dave Thompson (AMG) When the Boomtown Rats topped the U.K. chart in October 1978, a lot of observers thought that was the last they'd hear of them -- "Rat Trap," after all, zapped the period zeitgeist with such devastating accuracy that it would surely be impossible to follow it through. Bob Geldof wasn't listening. "I Don't Like Mondays," the band's follow-up single, not only returned the band to the top, it became one of the biggest-selling singles in British chart history, while the album that followed, November's The Fine Art of Surfacing, opened with two new songs that, if anything, were superior even to that. "Someone's Looking at You," a ruthlessly spot-on study of paranoia, and the death-of-a-socialite "Diamond Smiles" truly mark the peak of the Rats' career and, if the remainder of the album struggled to hit the same spot, what else could they do? Four bonus tracks (three B-sides and a live cut) do lessen the majesty of the album itself -- you really do want to press "stop" once the album proper crashes to its close. Elsewhere, however, this most eclectic of all the band's albums stands today as, quite possibly, the last great LP of the 1970s -- and the first classic of the '80s. From the moody "Wind Chill Factor" to the quirky "Having My Picture Taken" and on to the somber "Sleep," the band barely puts a foot wrong, while "I Don't Like Mondays" naturally remains insensitive to any kind of critical commentary. |