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Do NOT overlook this great music Dec 16, 2007
You need this album. You probably need two in case something happens to the first--or you wear it out. Critics love it. In fact, anyone who listens to it loves it. It contains not one track you'd ever think of skipping or saying, "I don't especially like this one" as you're listening to it with friends. This is great rock by very talented musicians. The music has the rawness of driving rock polished meticulously by producer Tony Visconti.The vocals are clear and strong with superb harmonies and rhythms in the backups. The guitars, keyboards, and drums are faultless, and the instrument breaks will knock your socks off. If you don't crank up your CD player during the breaks in "Let's Talk about the Weather," your mind has seriously wandered. And the lyrics--it's hard to find any so intelligent. Critics have said of "Ghostown", "It's a monumental achievement in rock, possibly the most significant Irish rock album ever," and "outrageously masterful stuff." You need this CD.
Don't burn your fingers. Jul 09, 2007
Scandalously, this magnificent cd arrived in the most non-descript package you can think of.
Little padded envelope, which, when squeezed offered little resistance. I thought it was a new credit card I'd applied for,(sound of Amazon sellers cheering!) so I left it alone for a day or two. Imagine my surprise when I eventually ripped at the seal and 'Ghostown', almost apologetically, tumbled out.
Not even clothed in a Perspex case, just one of those feeble thin cardboard jobs, really frail. It did not bode well...
Checked the track listing on the back, yep, couldn't read a word of it, but what's this; something inside...aha a lyric sheet? A potted history? Interview with the band? No, no and no. An advert for Ace Records.(Appropriately named on this showing.) Oh dear.
Of course, my shallow and superficial reservations vanished into the ether when I finally played the thing. (Quick squint before I started; Re-mastered? Enhanced? Extra songs? No, no and no. Happy days.)
Put simply, this is one of the greats. Almost 30 years old and I cant get the damned thing out of the player. You don't need extras and gimmicks (cd cases!?) when you're initial product is as good as this.
Don't be put off by the fact that there's a Pogue in here somewhere, it doesn't spoil the songs at all.
And what songs! Reminding of under-rated blood-brothers the Distractions, they soar in the sky. They're literate, melodic, political at times, but they never forget to whip up, in some style, the essential post-punk pop-rock storm. (And it's the taking of something by storm we're talking about here, not a storm in a teacup!)
I hadn't heard this for years, my vinyl copy having mysteriously disappeared many moons ago,(perhaps into the same ether as my reservations..? Perhaps not.) but it literally took me seconds to connect again. It was like an absent (good) friend turning up, AND getting a round in.
All Radiators albums were good to varying degrees, but this absolutely deserves the 'classic' tag, and all the other overused and undeserved accolades you see applied to much lesser works on these very pages, are properly valid here.
'The greatest Irish rock album ever...' ? Probably, though I did think one or two of those 'Kabuki' groups could have mounted a serious challenge, but not now.
According to Brian Boyd they split soon after , I don't know, I was too busy listening to 'Ghostown' to notice I'm afraid, and I still am.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Musically ambitious Irish Punk?/Rock? album. One of top 5 Albums of 78' Dec 21, 2005
I am so glad to see some of the old classics from the 78-79 era being released on CD and along with "The Records" `Shades in Bed' this is the one I've been waiting for. This album remains one of my most cherished musical memories from my Schooldays back in the U.K. I actually bought the vinyl album purely on the cover & Song Title's. It just looked different and interesting & I found out that it most certainly was. Probably the most overlooked Irish band you've never heard of from the era. The Radiators had REAL, dynamic lyrics on this album all of which are beautifully orchestrated & you will find yourself singing along to the lyrics before you know it. In anyone else's hands songs like `They're Looting the Town' & `Kitty Ricketts' would feel pompous & overdone. I'm reminded a little of the "Boomtown Rats" `Rat Trap' in as much as the songs on this album are actually pretty ambitious. The production is excellent. Tony Visconti really does sterling work here and gives the album a completely uniquely Irish feel (whatever that is - if you listen to the album you'll know what I mean!). Listening to this album again has been like reacquainting myself with an old friend. Written between October 77 & July 78 in Dublin & London (I'm reading from the Inner sleeve here) it separates itself from the rest of the Punk/Post-Punk Crowd with intelligent, infectious lyrics & chorus lines that will hook you completely. Musically/Instrumentally it is an entity unto itself with `String Arrangement's', `Electric 12 String Guitar's', ` Saxophone's', 'Piano's', `Synth's', `Bazouki's', `Banjo-Guitar's', `Mandolin's', 'Bongo's!', 'Hammond', 'Timpani??' & of all things `Hollywood Choir' (courtesy of Mary Hopkin - I wonder......is that the early 70's Mary Hopkin of softer than soft folk-rock legend) Thankfully this band had the balls to make an album like this as I suspect that it wasn't particularly commercially prudent at the time. Far too melodic to be considered Punk & not fake enough for the crass pop that hit the charts at the time. Here you have what I believe is the rare instance of a band really trying to make music on their terms & with the talents of Tony Visconti to help them realize it they produced what I think is one of the top 5 LP's of 78'. If you really want to know what constituted good music back in 78-79 then you owe it to yourself to pick up this CD.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
"a monumental artistic achievement" Apr 24, 2005
THE RADIATORS
Ghostown
On Tuesday, October 31st, 1978, The Radiators took to the stage of London's Electric Ballroom to preview material from their forthcoming Ghostown album. These new Phil Chevron-Pete Holidai songs detailed "a midnight walk through Dublin with the ghosts of the city's past". They were lost on the punk kidz in the audience. We now know that the safety-pinned fools were being treated to the first ever live airing of probably the greatest Irish rock album of all time.
To put this in local context: The Radiators' creative leap from 1977's TV Tube Heart to 1979's Ghostown was similar to The Beatles' from She Loves You to Tomorrow Never Knows. Their subject matter was a Dublin (to be pronounced with three syllables) paralyzed by political and religious hypocrisies. The song cycle, beginning with the jumpy, harmony-laden Millon Dollar Hero and ending with the tense, nervous Dead the Beast, Dead the Poison, details a cowed city - haunted by its past, with little present and yes, No Future. The songs are magnificent: the stomping They're Looting in the Town; the beautiful snarl of Kitty Ricketts and the stark home-truths of Song of the Faithful Departed.
Musically, the album was audacious for its time; lyrically, it's never been bettered. Ghostown represents the first time in Irish cultural life that a rock music 33rpm could sit pretty alongside the country's literary and dramatic output. In a bitter perversion of the truth, the album marked the beginning of the end of The Radiators. Ghostown was their parting shot to posterity. Quite simply: a monumental artistic achievement.
BRIAN BOYD (Irish Times, April 2005)
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