| Mondo Bongo | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | the Boomtown Rats |
| Cover: | cover_-_mondo_bongo.jpg |
| Released: | December 1980 (UK)[1] February 1981 (US) |
| Studio: | Ibiza Sound Studios, Ibiza, Spain |
| Genre: | Rock, new wave[2] |
| Label: | Mercury (UK) Columbia (US) |
| Producer: | Tony Visconti The Boomtown Rats |
| Prev Title: | The Fine Art of Surfacing |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | V Deep |
| Next Year: | 1982 |
Mondo Bongo was the Boomtown Rats' fourth album.[2] It peaked at No. 6 in the UK Albums Chart in February 1981, and No. 116 in the US Billboard 200.[3] This is the band's last album to be recorded as six-piece band, as the guitarist Gerry Cott left the band shortly after the album's release.
It included the hit singles: "Banana Republic", which had reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in November 1980 and "The Elephants Graveyard (Guilty)" which made No. 26 in January 1981.[4]
The album received mixed reviews in the press, with American critics being generally more positive than their British counterparts. New Musical Express put down the record as "hollow pop, quaking under a plethora of poorly integrated rip-offs", while Sounds called it "self-indulgent" and lacking in depth or emotion.[5] Rolling Stone, however, praised it as "an intoxicating mixture of pop and punk", and Trouser Press called it "an enormously enjoyable LP, with hardly a dry patch on it".[5]
All songs were written by Bob Geldof, except where noted.
The North American releases replaced "Fall Down" with "Don't Talk to Me" (2:50) and "Whitehall 1212" with "Up All Night" (3:33). The Canadian cassette release added "Whitehall 1212" as a bonus track at the end of Side 1, after "Under Their Thumb."
This reissue caused some controversy amongst fans for not only mixing up the track order from the original LP, but for cutting out the short period of silence in the middle of "Cheerio" that was placed there to allow the listener to say something, as per the lyrics.
| Chart | Position | |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (Kent Music Report) | 24[7] | |
| Canadian Albums Chart[8] | 22 | |
| UK Albums Chart | 6 | |
| United States Billboard 200 | 116 |