Boomtown Rats - The Fine Art of Surfacing

So it's been a while since I last updated this blog. That was mainly due to the fact that both of my vintage receivers are crapping out on me. My Marantz 2252B has a bad speaker relay which causes one of the channels to cut out. My Pioneer AX-15 is developing a nasty hum, which drives me crazy. Anyway, I bought my very first T-amp, a Lepai, which is working well so far and may be the temporary solution to all my problems (I really need to get the Marantz fixed. It sounds like freaking butter when it's working properly). So I'm back listening to my vinyl and loving it.

The Fine Art of Surfacing is the first thing I listened to with my new setup. Here's the thing about this album: "I Don't Like Mondays" is so amazing and strange, both in its origins and intent, that it overshadows everything else on this album. Sure, there are a lot of great and/or interesting songs ("Someone's Looking at You" and "Having my Picture Taken" in particular) on this album, but I ultimately don't remember them when the needle hits the return track. "I Don't Like Mondays" and its story of a young psychopath is all you need to know about this album. Now that school shootings are a near weekly occurrence  it seems a shame that we can't at least turn each tragedy into art as well as Bob Geldof did here.