Who are... City Boy!

Sorry to my reader(s?) for getting so far behind on my blog. Here's the year's first post then!
In the 'Who are' category of bands that time passed by, now we come to City Boy.

What ?
Formed in England in 1975, out of the previous folk band Back in the band.
Notable members included guitarplayer Mike Slamer (later of such bands as Streets and Seventh Key) and singer Lol Mason. The band released 7 albums between 75 and 81, 6 of which are now available on CD thanks to Renaissance Records.

Sounds like.. ?
The band that City Boy remind me of most is another english band, Queen. It's not that the vocals sound like Queen's but more the way that City Boy were all over the place with their songs, like vintage Queen. On their biggest selling album,1979's The Day The Earth Caught Fire, there are songs that if not for the lead vocals could be mistaken for Queen. Listen to the title track for instance, with those cascading riffs and background vocals. One of the group's two 'hits', along with the poppier 5-7-0-5 from the 1978 Book Early album, the song defined City Boy's flamboyant rock style. Large choruses, big arrangements and album-oriented rock instead of single-oriented. The style of the day was punk - with short sharp and organic sounding songs about life and anti-establishment. While big bands like Queen were able to survive, many of the other 'proggy' bands like City Boy and Be Bop Deluxe failed to gain the success they had hoped, and are not remembered much today. Which is a shame, because the music on display is often really good. The best years of the band were 77 to 79, in which time they released their 3 most 'rock-oriented' albums. After two more albums followed, which both leaned more on pop like in the band's early days, but with occasional diamonds such as Life on the balcony from 1980's Heads are rolling.

Discography
1975 - City Boy
1976 - Dinner at the Ritz
1977 - Young men gone west
1978 - Book Early
1979 - The day the earth caught fire
1980 - Heads are rolling
1981 - It's personal

Best and worst
The Day the earth caught fire is the album to recommend, but all the albums have good songs if you can stand the eclectic style that Queen employed on albums such as 'Jazz'.
I haven't heard more than 1-2 songs from It's personal so I can't comment too much on that, but as previously mentioned the 77-79 years is where it really came together for the band. Unfortunately they did not reach the big leagues and are relatively obscure today. For semi-obscure rock, this is a great band to check out, especially now that most of their output has been reissued on CD.