The Boomtown Rats - Mary Of The 4th Form (Alternate Version) 7" (1980)

From The Lost Record Covers Club

By 1980 The Rats star was fading but they were still putting out decent albums.  "Tonic For The Troops" was their big seller and the follow-up "The Fine Art Of Surfacing" had two singles "Diamond Smiles" which went top twenty and "Someone's Looking At You" taking them back to fine form chartwise with a more than respectable no 4.  In 1980, in preparation for the next album "Mondo Bongo" Ensign decided to repromote (not reissue as they hadn't been deleted) the band's sigles todate - all in the orginal picture bags.  When "Mary" was first issued there had been green, Red and blue versions of the bag but the resissue came only in red.

Ensign's idea (or Phonogram's) was to see if they could re-chart a number of tracks at once to riase the profile ready for the next album.  I worked in planning for the distribution centre and they certainly sold - I can't find any record of chrt re-entry though.

I saw them on the tour to promote this and 1980 being what it was there was still an element of attitude about the gigs from the opening welcome of "stand up you fuckers" to Bob pointing out the group of us in the crowd who hadn't paid but were guests of the record company - resulting in much abuse from the paying punters.

They had one further good run at the charts as "Banana Republic" the reggae flavoured single leading "Mondo" did well hitting no 3 but being a real radio favourite at that time.

Above all that they made great singles and any compilation (of which "Loudmouth" is best) is definitely worth an investment.

Ensign 7" - ENY 9

http://www.45cat.com/record/eny9

Boomtown Rats - She's So Modern (1978)

From The Lost Record Covers Club

The Rats had a deal with Ensign Records run by Nigel Grainge.  He had a deal with Phonogram who licensed his products worldwide.  The Rats were certainly his biggest artist but the label had Light Of The World and Beggar And Co; Flash and The Pan and a few others.  The Rats had had a good run of singles and in the early 80's decided to reissue all the hits in their original picture bags (which would have been limited on original release).  They utilsed the same numbers and label art etc so it was a really economic way of repromoting the band's catalogue.  I think a few of them charted again in the lower reaches of the Top 40.  This is one of my favourites.  The art is very stylised like fashion sketches.

Ensign - ENY13 (7" Single)