City Boy/Dinner at the Ritz

Artist: City Boy
Label: Renaissance
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording reissued
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 630428021624
EAN: 0630428021624
ASIN: B000006NC4

Release Date: 1998-04-07

City Boy/Dinner at the Ritz

Related Categories:

Britain

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Soft Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Tracks:

(Moonlight) Shake My Head And Leave
Deadly Delicious
Sugery Hours (Doctor Doctor)
Sunset Boulevard
Oddball Dance
5000 Years/Don't Know Can't Tell
The Hap-Ki-Do Kid
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Haymaking Time

Tracks:

Momma's Boy
Walk On The Water
Narcissus
Dinner At The Ritz
Goodbye Blue Monday
The Violin
State Secrets-A Thriller: State Secrets/Heavy Breathing/Spring In Peking

Similar Items:

Young Men Gone West/Book Early
Anthology

Album Description

Two-fer featuring the first two albums by English pop group that Mutt Lange produced. Includes the U.K. hits 'The Hap-ki-do Kid', 'Surgery Hours', 'Shake My Head And Leave', 'Goodbye Blue Monday' and 'Mama's Boy'. 16 tracks total. 'City Boy' (1976) & 'Dinner At The Ritz' (1977) were both first released on Phonogram. Includes the original cover artof each & full lyrics. 1998 Renaissance release. Double slimline jewel case.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best bands of the 70's.......2006-06-27

Thought I'd add my 2 cents to the City Boy "love fest". Starting with the "CITY BOY" album and through "YOUNG MEN GONE WEST", City boy was arguably one of "thee" very best pop-rock bands on the planet.Extemely clever lyrics(yes, ala 10 cc but sans the "canned" feel to their sound.) The vocals -glorious . The musicianship -incredible. Yes, Mr.Slamer is the most underrated ,unsung guitarist of the 70's.DINNER AT THE RITZ is indeed their masterpiece. I was LUCKY enough to see them live on the "YOUNG MEN GONE WEST" tour. They opened for gawdawful Nektar. Simply stated -They were AMAZING. Nothing lost from the studio. Their vocals were fantastic and Slameister-oh how he shredded-(most notably on "Dear Jean" of course).What's with the scarcity of these CDs? I guess for a lost materpiece ya gotta pay the price.

Dinner at the Ritz (PROG HEAVEN! - and it's not even prog!).......2005-12-08

DINNER AT THE RITZ is in my top TEN of best albums ever made. It is dripping with intelligence, wit, melody, musicianship! It's an absolutely stunning album - and this remaster is breathtaking in its sound quality. If you're into metal-prog try the first track "Mama's Boy" - everything tedious prog-metal bands try to achieve but in less than 5 mins (not half hour rubbish! and instead of boring woe-is-me lyrics, you get lyrics as witty as 10cc and The Beatles at their best. In fact, there's a track poking fun at the narcissists on this album, namely, "Narcissist") As for "State Secrets", I've read somewhere that some prog bands are trying to achieve the medley side of mainly McCartney work on side 2 of Abbey Road, well listen to "State Secrets" the greatest ever homage to that medley side of Abbey Road. The producer of this band, who did a wonderful job on this album, went on to produce his future wife's country crossover hits (I can't remember her name right now, but she had a big it with "That Don't Impress Me Much" something like that) Well you even get a Country and Western tearjerker here in "The Violin" - but this is ironic country, complete with beautiful melody, with weeping pedal-steel, all that stuff, but this is how Zappa or Randy Newman or Stravinsky or some other detached 'objective' artist would write it. And if you're bemoaning the fact that Freddie Mercury is partying in heaven, take a listen to the title track: "Dinner at the Ritz" - Queen at their very best, but much, much, much better! (And I love Queen!) Their guitarist Mike Slamer, on these albums, is not only a virtuoso, but an instant melodic and powerful composer, when adding his guitar work. (Later on he went on to make some dreadful stuff in Streets, but he probably made more money out of that!) If you like Beach Boys pretty, albeit anaemic (because they never ROCK) harmonies, you'll be amazed by the brilliant harmonies of this band. All City Boys are good - but DINNER AT THE RITZ is one of those masterpieces (like Carl Nielsen's 6th, or all of HAYDN'S symphonies, or McCartney's RAM or Traffic's LOW SPARK OF HIGH HEELED BOYS) that actually make life worth living. (The other City Boy albums are marred with 'trying to break into the american market' syndrome. If you want to collect another after "Dinner at the Ritz" - "Young Men GOne West" is their next best - and here you get their debut album, which still has many moments of brilliance.)

City Boy: Intelligent, Funny, Well Produced and Well Played.......2001-03-04

I first heard City Boy in 1976 and followed them to about 1980 then lost track of them. Their lyrics are very well written; enough so that just reading them off the liner notes is very entertaining. For a rock band they show sophisticated harmonic twists while alway remaining very melodic. They have a great knack for changing dynamics in a song and developing more than one melodic theme in each song. It's a type of music that's a bit quirky sometimes because of the subject matter or viewpoint but it infectiously makes you want to sing along. You might say intelligent rock with pop-like hooks. It's also quite well recorded. Their later efforts were really geared toward garnering top 40 radio play (but still bright and well written). I prefer the first album's longer pieces because they don't try to fit into that 3 and a half minute radio oriented format. I also enjoy YES but City Boy is more rock; it's intelligent music with great harmony vocals.

Quick tid-bit about City Boy.......2001-02-26

The CD cover here displays the album 'City Boy' (CB), their first recording. The album 'Dinner at the Ritz' (DATR) was (I think) their second recording with a facinating photograph on the album cover. I give this five stars for DATR. The CB album alone I would give one or two stars. I purchased CB some time after DATR, and these purchases were made in the seventies. Recently, I gathered the rest of their collection. I was as unimpressed with every thing else they have recorded as I was with the CB album. However, something happened on DATR that made this recording very different from the rest of their work. I believe that DATR is unique and impeccable music. I feel that the rest of what this band has done is lacking in quality of music, melody, lyrical content, and most importantly - production.

DATR is the best of City Boy by a long margin. DATR is the second disc of this set starting with the song 'Momma's Boy'. If you pay attention you will notice a very big difference in the quality of the songwriting, the music production, and sound of the recording, as compared to any other City Boy recording.

Perhaps this band was disregarded by either their record company or their producer or both. Or, perhaps like many bands they put all of their best material on one album. I just don't understand the vast difference between this and all their other work.

Music Album:

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Live at Chene Park ~ Jean-Luc Ponty

Caught: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack ~ Chris Botti

Meets the Rhythm Section ~ Art Pepper

Relaxin' ~ Miles Davis Quintet

Inspiration ~ Phil Ranelin

Dizzy's Big 4 ~ Dizzy Gillespie's Big 4

Hasta La Vista Baby ~ Cordalis

Singing Bowls

Phut Crackle Tokyo ~ Slayre & the Feminin

Sirva-Se ~ Dead Fish