The Fine Art Of Surfacing
by The Boomtown Rats

Album
The Fine Art Of Surfacing by The Boomtown Rats
Year: 1979
Release date: 1979-10-05
Overall rank: 4,303rd   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
76/100 (from 79 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1979 (71st)
Award Top albums of of the 1970s (709th)
Award Best albums of all time (4,303rd)

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The Boomtown Rats bestography

The Fine Art Of Surfacing is ranked as the best album by The Boomtown Rats.

The Boomtown Rats album bestography « Higher ranked
- This album (4,303rd)
The Fine Art Of Surfacing Lower ranked (7,283rd) »
A Tonic For The Troops

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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The Fine Art Of Surfacing track list

  Track ratings The tracks on this album have an average rating of 79 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).

Sort Sort by
#
Track
Rating/Comments
1.
Someone's Looking At You
Average Rating: 81 (28 votes)Comments: View 0
2.
Diamond Smiles
Average Rating: 81 (28 votes)Comments: View 1
3.
Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero)
Average Rating: 77 (20 votes)Comments: View 0
4.
Having My Picture Taken
Average Rating: 77 (18 votes)Comments: View 0
5.
Sleep (Fingers' Lullaby)
Average Rating: 77 (20 votes)Comments: View 0
6.
Track pick (870 - 55 votes)
I Don't Like Mondays
Average Rating: 87 (55 votes)Comments: View 2
7.
Nothing Happened Today
Average Rating: 77 (19 votes)Comments: View 0
8.
Keep It Up
Average Rating: 78 (19 votes)Comments: View 0
9.
Nice N Neat
Average Rating: 78 (21 votes)Comments: View 0
10.
When The Night Comes
Average Rating: 77 (20 votes)Comments: View 0

Track pick (1000 - 100 votes) Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.

The Fine Art Of Surfacing rankings

The Fine Art Of Surfacing rankings summary
Overall rank: 4,303rd | 1970s rank: 709th | 1979 rank: 71st  Overall chart history
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings).Help Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)

The Fine Art Of Surfacing collection

The Fine Art Of Surfacing ratings

Average Rating: 
76/100 (from 79 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 3 ratings for this album.  | Show all 79 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
0/100
 !		09/18/2026 05:32 goodhumourman  Ratings distribution  4764/100
 
70/100
 !		02/28/2026 18:09 DaveH68  Ratings distribution  1,36376/100
 
75/100
 !		02/27/2026 12:29 cicadelic  Ratings distribution  14,31673/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 5% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 75.9/100, a mean average of 73.9/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.4/100. The standard deviation for this album is 18.2.


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The Fine Art Of Surfacing favourites

Showing all 10 members who have added this album as a favourite

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The Fine Art Of Surfacing forum mentions

This album has been referenced 14 times on the forums, Explore the wider forum discussion to see what members have said about it.
From Johnnyo 02/09/2026 07:00 in Crate of cassettes
“The best of the rats albums”
View post →

From Johnnyo 01/17/2026 10:15 in What album are you listening to? (cont.)
“What album are you listening to? (cont.)”
View topic (4 mentions) →

From dihansse 05/12/2023 19:10 in My discoveries per year
“Two albums of 1979 I listened to: First an album I already own and of which there is a track I haven't heard in many years: That tracks is Disco Strangler, last listened to in 13 February 2010 and not really good. After their big success with Hotel California, this whole album was clearly a big…”
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The Fine Art Of Surfacing comments

Showing all 4 comments |
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Rating:  
100/100
From 01/04/2015 20:59 | #130828 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Smart, dark (but not humorless) rock songs featuring the narrative enthusiasm of Bob Geldof's singing, the superb piano/synth playing of Johnny Fingers, the consistently outstanding drumming of Simon Crowe, brattily fun backup vocals, and the best detail-oriented rock production I've ever heard.
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Rating:  
80/100
From 10/29/2014 04:23 | #125677 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Wore this record out a long time ago...Good dance parties, good memories.
Sounds a little dated now
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Rating:  
70/100
From 08/08/2020 10:01 | #256814 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Some rats albums were horrendous but I liked this one. The production from Visconti raises it above others as well as a handful of great tunes. 'Someone's looking at you' excels in this regard. Great guitar sound and keyboards.
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Rating:  
70/100
From 01/17/2026 10:20 | #312676 | TOP COMMENT Help Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.
Although never really a top band, they would probably have disappeared into obscurity if not for Band Aid, this is not a bad album at all. Some decent, catchy tunes. An Ok album (Edited)
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Best Albums of  1979
1. London Calling by The Clash
2. The Wall by Pink Floyd
3. Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division
4. Fear Of Music by Talking Heads
5. Off The Wall by Michael Jackson
6. Breakfast In America by Supertramp
7. Entertainment! by Gang Of Four
8. Rust Never Sleeps by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
9. Highway To Hell by AC/DC
10. Tusk by Fleetwood Mac