Pet Shop Boys - Tracks Poll

Quick question: Should our ballots be numbered? If so, should the format be

1 - "Track 1"
2 - "Track 2"
.
.
.
20 - "Track 20"

?

?

also, soooo psyched abt this!!

"Young Offender" is one of the few songs about which I can, "OK, this is my life."

also, remember before they ruined it on Introspective "I Want A Dog" was a fucking great song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0yIJ7TLZeg&feature=related

It'll be close to impossible narrowing this to 20 tracks.

I could list twenty great songs and not even mention "West End Girls."

"West End Girls" didn't make my initial ballot

Neither did "Opportunities", "What Have I Done To Deserve This?", "It's a Sin", "Being Boring", "So Hard" or "How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?"

also if you don't love this song you may be dead inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDteRvSWkjc

The mystery of the world
For every boy and every girl
Who don't understand
What's going on anymore

Helena Springs and Tennant harmonizing is one of the best sounds in the world.

Should our ballots be numbered?

Yes, absolutely.

In format:

1. Track 1
2. Track 2
.
.
10. Track 10 (Dusty Minelli)
.
.
20. Track 20

DON'T FORGET THIS ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETMqQTMDgiE

Neil Tennant seems to write about my life all the time.
"Nervously", "Boy Strange", "Sexy Northerner", "Liberation", "So Hard", "It must be obvious", "The Way It Used To Be", "A Red Letter Day", and so many more.

I agree we should get 50 votes!

To me their only utter bore of an album is Yes, with Release close behind; and even then there's "The Way It Used to Be," "Home and Dry," "You Choose," and "Love, Etc."

I like "I Get Along", but it's chorus is too close to Super Furry Animals.

I'm a massive fan of both bands but had somehow never noticed this! It is "Something for the Weekend" though, huh.

Don't think this will make my 20, but I hope it gets a few votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHI7OHqKzW8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Roca7FVAIEs&feature=related

I'd actually forgotten how much I like this song; I should really get around to replacing this album soon

If "Being Boring" didn't exist, the album would still have "This Must Be the Place..." and "My October Symphony."

"So Hard" is great, too, and "End of the World"

Coming across a lot of tracks I had forgotten about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgiL6Gg5_wE

At least two of these collaborations will end up un my ballot:

Losing My MInd (Liza Minnelli)
I'm Not Scared (Eighth Wonder)
Hallo Spaceboy (David Bowie)
The Crying Game (Boy George)
We're The Pet Shop Boys (Robbie Williams)
Walking On Thin Ice (Yoko One)

Choosing just 20 songs is…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFAA6Z_YIEM&feature=related

Are all the Paninaros going to be considered as one track?

Yes, but if people want to specify a version I'll bear that in mind when doing the reveal.

― The multi-talented F.R. David (Billy Dods), Thursday, June 23, 2011 8:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

This goes for all 'double's' and remixes? (I'm voting for the dance remix of Love Comes Quickly from Disco, for example)

://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgWu37xXFkg&feature=related

this is hot

oh ffs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgWu37xXFkg&feature=related

The Crying Game (Boy George)

I'd forgotten how great this is.

multixpost, yes all remixes/alternate versions will be collated together, unless it's a collaboration and the artists will be treated seperately, I think there's less than a handful of tracks this would affect.

Thanks Billy, and thanks for doing this!

Listening back to a lot of stuff. PSB was the very first band I got into, when I was 7 or 8. Still incredible love for all that music, though looking at the discography now I stopped listening to the full albums after Bilingual.

93 song shortlist, and I'm willfully ignoring the songs sung by other artists.

haha, had forgotten about this wacky video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niwrx19lUQg

It's that shot, by the way, that makes Chris Lowe collapse into hysterics on the commentary track for their video compilation.

"Unintentionally hilarious," he mumbles.

"As ever," Neil says.

Chris is kind of a jerk sometimes, isn't he?

Ballot submitted btw. Only one post-Very track.

Alfred, is that dvd compilation any good? The commentary I mean? (I know the videos are)

Left this track out and am now regretting it :( (sorry for the info, won't reveal anything else)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9yfAcnXk8

some gaps on that commentary, but some lolz to be had as well xpost

Which dvd? PopArt?

Let's put it this way: if there were no DVDs and you just had the commentary to play, you would still have a ball.

The early 00s reissue liner note Q&As with Chris Heath are a treat. I could read/listen to them talk about their music for hours.

Yeah, those reissue booklets are essential.

would like to vote in this but all i have is a greatest hits comp and "actually"

Transcribed here.

xpost - I'd still vote if I were you. Probably not everyone will agree but to me the PSB are a 'singles' act.

Ah, just vote anyway. The true heads will see it right. I'm going to even though I've just counted how many tracks I like and only came up with a dozen - turns out they're not as good as I thought they were.

just fill in the rest of your ballot with random tracks from Alternative and you'll be fine

urns out they're not as good as I thought they were.

I thought the same about you.

ha!

ive got 14

SB's for Kismael?

*Ismael?

Neil/Chris chemistry in the discussion of Don Juan is A+

Neil The basic song was written in the Seventies, in about 1978, before I knew Chris. It was written on the guitar and was supposed to sound Spanish, which was why I thought of reviving it to go on the b-side of 'Domino dancing'. While Chris complains that I write songs about Russian history all the time, this is about the Balkans in the 1930s. I was trying to write lyrics in the style of Facade by Edith Stilwell, a sequence of poems she wrote with music by William Walton. Facade was very controversial when it was first performed at Cheyne Gallery on King's Road as Edith Stilwell declaimed it through a curtain with a megaphone while the music was playing.

Chris Was it slightly pretentious?

Neil In the Balkans in the 1930s, they were caught between Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany leading up to World War II. They had all these funny monarchies. There was King Zog of Albania, King Boris of Bulgaria and Prince Paul, the Regent of Yugoslavia, and they were all trying not to be allied to Hitler while trying to stop Stalin annexe half their lands. Don Juan is supposed to be Hitler or Stalin but I could never quite work out which. I think its Hitler. It's always interested me, that area. I suppose it's the hopelessness of it. The song attempts an Edith Stilwell use of words: 'an impasse has been reached with the teacher of the rich'. It's like someone coming to their senses: throughout all this decadence and complex language, they have this flash of complete reason.

Chris Then it goes into a bit which is like 'Flash dance (What A Feeling)'.

another excuse to post the 7" mix of this B-side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7-j4Wnw4k

^^^ one of their best full stop

that said I think Behavior/Very >> Please/Actually

xp - Yeah, also the Please/Actually-era B-sides is yet more proof of how on fire they were during this period.

I like plenty of later era PSB songs, but had they stopped at Actually (OK, let's say Introspective), their status of legends would stay intact in my book.

1986 to 1994 is a good run imo

xp -I am aware that, for me, part of the appeal of these to albums is the mid-80s sound, which I've always been partial to, above any other era.

'Hit Music' feels like more of a B-side than the B-sides of the period.