Seriously, is there anything better than the Pet Shop Boys?

All of the voices come through just fine, even on my less than stellar car speakers, but the parts where Scott (I'm assuming) mixes in songs with your discussions drown out your voices and are in general really hard to listen to. Not that there are a lot of these, and not that they last all that long anyway, but still.

Their musical about the life of Alan Turing premieres tomorrow night as part of their orchestral show for the BBC Proms. Hopefully on iPlayer to listen to afterwards.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/20/pet-shop-boys-alan-turing-enigma-proms-tribute-interview

I was there last night. The first half the concert - an orchestral medley of their 80s material, followed by four songs rearranged by Angelo Badlamenti and sung by Chrissie Hynde, was fantastic, especially when Tennant came on and duetted with Hynde during 'Rent'.

The Turing piece was mediocre really, most pop musicians just don't have the musical vocabulary to be able to write a 45min orchestral piece that stands up and they were no exception, the spoken word and choral bits were clunky, and the whole effect was a bit Murray Gold. The one genuinely emotionally resonant bit was the disembodied voice of Gordon Brown apologising for the government's treatment of Turing.

Chrissie Hynde still looks cool as fuck on stage btw.

the whole effect was a bit Murray Gold

Oh dear. (I wouldn't go that far, I admit! While the effect was more in-the-moment than lingering, I appreciated the attempt at interpretive biography.)

That said, yeah, those opening pieces with Hynde. "Vocal!"

Listening to this now. Would pay $$ to see an entire show of PSB orchestral duets with Chrissie Hynde.

does anyone on here rep for Nightlife? I just can't get into that one (outside of "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk")

Yep!

It's uneven but the first 3 tracks are really solid.
The other good ones are "Drunk", "Radiophonic", "Boy Strange", and "In Denial".

iPlayer link, good 'til mid-August.

That ]Smash Hits "obituary"...

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2906/14193502729_27d2a922d6_b.jpg

*Smash Hits, rather.

haha that's great

I actually can't wait to see if the Smash Hits blog stretches on into 1986/1987... hoping that I'll be able to read some vintage Smash Hits reviews of PSB stuff, just to see how easy/harsh they are on their former co-worker. As for Tennant's own reviews for Smash Hits, naturally I agree with some and not others. I was particularly pleased to see that he "got" Soft Cell's This Last Night In Sodom.

Tennant's slick hair is so charming.

great image - also, The Untouchables were my first ever concert.

I imagine Chris looking at this photo and considering tweaking his image

Ha, yeah... when I saw it, I was like "fuck, Chris looks unusually chipper!"

A fine thing:

Pet Shop Boys recently announced plans to release on YouTube a collection of their @BBC TV performances from 1985 until 2012. The collection so far includes nineteen performances recorded on Top of the Pops, The Old Grey Whistle Test and Wogan. Link below.https://t.co/YRt3gO0nh5

— Pet Shop Boys (@petshopboys) October 30, 2020

I really like this new single "Desert Star". 1986 all over.