City Boy – Book Early - Used LP

VG-/VG-

While this UK outfit hit the big time at home with the hit single opening track from this album, I never knew that, and that song is a bit much for me..and the only reason I remember this album was because when we were kids we'd smoke Marlboros, click on the 8-track and listen to the song "Cigarettes."  Simple songs for simple kicks.  "I may have lost you, but I've got your cigarettes...just a trace of lipstick on a filter tip."  When life soon turned extremely weird, cigarettes soon became so important to me so....  On the eight-track, "Cigarettes" was coupled with "Summer in the School Yard" on one of the 4 programs (or maybe you could click and get those two songs and ignore the rest of the album) so that song sounds so familiar and catchy to me. Returning to the album, I find those two songs bring back a flood of memories from 45 years ago, and while some of the album is bit much with the pomp elements, it's also fairly successful, fits in with all the British mildly progressive pop-rock post-Beatles albums of the 1970s, recalls many other UK bands of this era, ELO, Elton, Todd Rundgren, Sniff & the Tears, Hollies, (and the song "Beth" showing the influence of Queen), the pomp, the guitar licks and polished and heavy production grounded with some simplicity of composition and focus on the songs.  -- winch