Cityboy - The Day the Earth Caught Fire - `79 - Atlantic

hey ~

ok , as promised , here is the other cityboy LP i have.
this one is probably more consistantly better than the debut.
i really love the title track , the ballads & the closing suite , ambition. enjoy kids !
"all trax from wax" - transferred by akashaman - 2008

aka`


amazon review : [ By Klaus Nrskov (Copenhagen Denmark) ]

The truly amazing thing about City Boy is their vocals. Apart from the even more amazing Sweet and Queen, City Boy is just about the best when it comes to vocal harmonies and multi-layered singing. This record and "Book Early" prove this point wihtout a doubt and with three really strong voices in the band (Broughton, Mason and Ward)their options on the vocal side were numerous - and they knew how to make use of them ... big time.
Also the songwriting is notably strong. Again you will have to start with the same to releases. "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" and "Book Early" are quite simply among the best pop/rock albums of the late seventies. And some of the songs could be regarded as classics. But this was the time of punk and new wave and everybody was looking somewhere else at the time. Simplicity and agression reigned and was preferred to classic qualities such as the above mentioned. And later - when City Boy released "Head are Rolling" - the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had hit the world and what we wanted was twin-guitars and quite different vocal aproaches.
Just the same City Boy was an excellent band and far more interesting than bands of the same genre such as Supertramp, Camel or even contemporary Genesis. All bands that did far better and whos legacy stand much stronger today. I truly find this unfair. City Boy were excellent and should be praised for their fantastic vocal-work and strong songs. They build this on top of a more than decent musicianship. I find this record to be marginally better and more consistent than "Book Early", but really you need to get them both.
This would naturally lead to this record. "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" was the last record with all of the three voices in the band. Broughton left after this record. And it is their best record - chiefly because it is so consistent yet versatile and because the songwriting and musicianship is slightly matured compared to "Book Early". Stand out tracks are the titletrack, "Machines" and the suite-like "Ambition" which are essentially four rather different tracks melted together in a way that works ok, but really you should listen to the four parts as four songs - as a concept it doesn't really work - not for me anyway. If you prefere the more edgy songs of City Boy you might think that the three tracks closing side one on the original LP are one too many to stay awake but at the end of the day they are all strong and melodic tracks.
City Boy never got anywhere, really. Which is quite a shame since they were one of the most interesting bands outside punk during the late seventies. Their vocal work are spectacular and a number of their songs truly stand out - even at this day and age. If you want to buy your way into City Boy, you should start here and go on to "Book Early".
City Boy is a an interesting band who deserved to do better than they did. And if you like complex composing in a compact song-format and in a distinctively seventies ambience ... well, don't hesitate. !

Cityboy - the day the earth caught fire - `79 - atlantic :
MP3 @ 320 kbps - 100 MB -
includes high rez cover scans & lyrix

• 1. The Day The Earth Caught
• 2. Its Only The End Of The W
• 3. Interrupted Melody
• 4. Modern Love Affair
• 5. New York Times
• 6. Up In The Eighties
• 7. Machines
• 8. Ambition
  

A. Ambition
B. me & my tarot
C. rev-on (the crunch)
D. the end (came easy)


DOWNLOAD : -- here --