Bob Geldof Discussion

I loved the Boomtown Rats and still feel that they're underrated, particularly in the U.S.--"Mondays" is pretty much their only known song in this country (as well as my least favorite).

I admired his passion and bluntness during Live Aid. Unfortunately, everything I read afterwards made him sound like a jerk. However, I definitely don't blame him for anyone else's death.

 

Not a fan of his music or him as a person. Being Irish, I know he is not liked at all here, to put it mildly. Personally i would not blame the
media, I blame him, because he puts his foot in it every time he opens his mouth...

 

His last solo album had a decent lead single:

 

Exactly how I feel about their career Dave - I could have written your words myself! The single 'Dave' in the last year they were active (for the first time) was a beautiful song however, but wasn't representative of the final album 'In The Long Grass' unfortunately...

 

as a musician: way overrated.

 

Tonic For The Troops and Fine Art Of Surfacing are amongst my favorite albums, still listen to them. ("Are you really going out with Adolf?")

What made them great was that they were fun, musically interesting and tight, and filled with insane amounts of hooks. In that environment, Bob's voice was a perfect match. As they drifted away ftom their roots, the chemistry was lost.

I don't own any latter-day Geldof. Nothing I've heard holds my interest.

 

I was unsure about him for a long time - can't say I was ever a fan of the B.R.s, who fell precipitately and permanently out of fashion in 1981. I Don't Like Mondays is a great record, though.

Then, I decided he was a mouthy, pretentious waste of space - this culminated when I attended a conference at which he was due to speak in 2010. Stories abounded of how 'difficult' he was being - demanding a limo to be driven the couple of hundred yards from his hotel-room to the main conference centre ('because Bob doesn't like walking', his PA was rumoured to have said). As I'd never been a fan of his music (a distant memory by then), there was no great conflict in my feelings.

However, my perception changed in 2016, when I found myself on the same side as him over Brexit. I've no idea whether his campaigning damaged his cause or not - his outspokenness was supposedly a turn-off but if the Remain campaign lacked something, it was passionate speakers who communicated with raw emotion. Even so, I imagine he repulsed as many people as he enthused.....

His stance on prog rock has always been a minus for me - someone needs to tell him that prog hatred is a thing of the distant past and that he needs to either listen again, or shut up.

 

I haven't had any interest in him as a recording artist since the 3rd Rats album but as a person I back him to the hilt. I liked his acting, (I haven't seen 'Number 1' since it came out but I remember enjoying it), and would have liked to have seen him do more and he's a great writer (I loved his 'Is That It?' book). Visiting Africa and seeing for himself what was happening there changed him completely. He was horrified and did more to help than anyone else on the planet, including world and religious leaders. There are thousands of people alive now that wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for his (and Midge's) gargantuan efforts to pull together the people he knew and do something incredible. And, make no mistake, Band Aid and the 1985 concerts were incredible. He raised his dead love rival's daughter away from the eyes of the press against a backdrop of unimaginable tragedy, and suffered further tragedy with the loss of his oldest daughter at a very young age. Throughout he remained dignified and lost none of his compassion or drive to make things better. He's a successful businessman, and it was him who got the four members of Pink Floyd back on stage for the last time, against the odds. Sure, he's brash, vulgar, foul-mouthed and scruffy but that's just him. He's never made any concessions to make himself more popular to the masses, and why should he? If the British tabloids paint him badly then that says more about the disgusting filth who work in that sector than it does about him. They will always need their whipping boys but, for me, Bob has already done more than enough to excuse any mistakes he may make, unlike many, many other humans. So there!

 

I really hope his first solo album "Deep in the heart of nowhere" will be reprint soon in a 2LP format with the full uncut tracklist, 'cause it's one of my favourite albums of the 80s. I bought the cassette when it was released and when I bought the vynil a few years ago I was very disappointed to find out 3 songs where missing and other were heavy edited.