This is set to be The Boomtown Rats first studio album since 1984’s In The Long Grass…
The Boomtown Rats will mark 2020, The Year Of The Rat in the Chinese calendar, with the release of Citizens Of Boomtown, their new studio album and a UK tour.
The new album features 10 glorious new Boomtown Rats songs and will be released on 13 March 2020. It is produced by Rats bassist Pete Briquette. The first single Trash Glam Baby, the sleaziest of rock songs at it’s core, will be released on 10 January.
If that wasn’t enough, on the same day as the album release, Faber Music is also set to 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.
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. Their reunion, tour, book and new album are hence hotly anticipated.