| "I'm a Rat" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Towers of London | ||||
| from the album Blood, Sweat and Towers | ||||
| Released | February 12, 2007 | |||
| Genre | Punk rock, hard rock | |||
| Label | TVT | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Francis Brannan, Patrick Brannan | |||
| Towers of London singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"I'm a Rat" is the fifth single by punk rock band Towers of London. It was taken from their debut album Blood, Sweat and Towers .
Released on February 12, 2007 via independent label TVT Records, the single follows the theme of typical British Saturday night drinking culture. This single is also their first to be released in the United States. It reached number 46 on the UK Singles Chart. [1]
Notably it is the Towers of London's first single since front man Donny Tourette emerged further into the spotlight as a pop culture star via appearances on Celebrity Big Brother and Never Mind the Buzzcocks .
Prior to release, author Stephen King named it as the 7th best song of 2006, "There is something to be said for straight puke-on-your-Dingo-boots rock & roll. Towers of London are mostly a joke, but this track — beginning with the shrieking air-raid siren — is... the real deal". [2]
The video for I'm a Rat was directed and edited by Living TV's award-winning promo maker Scott Russell, using stop motion photography.
The single has been released in various formats such as compact disc, vinyl, picture disc and mp3. Each format has a different track list, with unreleased songs on each one.
For the standard compact disc version, which featured the Tourette brother's faces on the cover, special features include the previously unreleased b-side track "The Women I Love". Along with two promotional videos, one for "I'm a Rat" and the other is "Faster Than The Fastest Car", another previously unreleased track. The vinyl variation (which has the same cover) featured unreleased bonus track "The Popscene - Original Demo".
A limited edition picture disc was also released, it featured guitarist The Rev and bassist Tommy Brunette on the cover instead, it also has a previously unreleased bonus; "The Boy Who Found A Girl".
An extended play (EP) is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record. Contemporary EPs generally contain four to five tracks, and are considered "less expensive and time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album. An EP originally referred to specific types of records other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well. In K-pop they are usually referred to as mini albums. Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, "EPs—originally extended-play 'single' releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk and indie bands." In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of maximum length and no more than four tracks.
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