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

Fave song, fave song...don't think I have one. Christ, I don't think I could even pick a favorite B-side, there are still too many choices!

I like Paninaro for Chris' vocals and for that sample of him in interview ("I don't like rockabilly").

I like Being Boring because it is a good song and has a good video.

I like Before for sounding like Take That (at least the chorus).

I like It's Alright because it is curiously affecting.

I like Jealousy, too.

Performance as Spencer notes, it's the same tour set as covered in Pet Shop Boys Versus America. Also, PopArt for all the videos plus some hilarious commentary. After that not sure...

xpost yes -we have to have have one PSB thread for every rockism thread to maintain the balance

The Pet Shop Boys' first twenty singles...

Tom's mother of a starting post can't be equalled, I think. Just brilliant, on point writing.)

Well, I'm rarely referred to as a hipster (with good reason), so I might not be the one to ask. But in the case of "West End Girls," I just think the single sold itself. Where I went to college in rural Ohio, people didn't seem to care whether PSB were hip or not (these are people who also bought albums by the Outfield). There didn't seem to be anything elitist or precious or hip about the Pet Shop Boys. Enigmatic? Sure. Gay? Probably. But nothing that excluded anyone or made people feel like they were tapping into some newfangled underground. I don't think people paraded around with their copy of Please by the PSB like they did with, say, Life's Too Good by the Sugarcubes or Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain. It wasn't that type of record.

Conversely, "Don Juan" is one of the best songs they put out in their career, so I'm doubly pissed that a completely loathesome, unlistenable shitpile of an A-side caused me to blank the utterly sublime B-side for a good nine years.

(xpost: Introspective is the aural equivalent of attempting to treat pinkeye by shiving needles into your cornea and connecting them to house current. Very is good, but not nearly as good as Behaviour, largely because "Can You Forgive Her?" and "Go West" promise big but don't actually deliver. Other than that, Alfred OTM. Kinda.)

I don't know - it seemed like "Please" had the best songs, followed by "Actually", followed by "Introspective" - I still have those three on cassette. After that I stopped listening to them much.

(Also, of those three albums, the best songs are "Rent", "One More Chance" and "I Want To Wake Up" IMO.)

Also, "Why Don't We Live Together?" and "Two Divided By Zero" are easily the best tracks on Please.

also, Bilingual is horridly underappreciated (did any of that has to do with it being the first release by Sire (US, dunno about UK) and them not knowing what to do with it). I defy anyone to hear "Se a Vida E" and not smile.

I do wonder sometimes whether my love for Domino Dancing is due to the fact that it's the first freestyle song I heard.

xpost

I fear though they've entered the twilight zone where Bowie's at where every new albums a supposed return to form, but sadly falls short. Fortunately they haven't released their Tin Machine yet.

That would be a tough one for me.

I utterly despise "Domino Dancing" because it is limpid, unimiginative, derivative, plodding, crass, unenjoyable, unforgivable, stupid, ugly-sounding, gauche, pandering, insufferable and all-around awful, plus it features one of Neil Tennant's most embarrassing vocal performances to date. And yes, those fucking stupid "All day all day" chants make me want to kill.

I am seriously working myself up into a rage thinking about this song. The last song that made me feel this homicidal when thinking about it was "Rollin'" by Limp Bizkit.

-- The Ghost of Dan Perry (djperr...), February 24th, 2005.

And I finally agree with Dan Perry about something! (Domino Dancing)

"Watch them all fall down" vs. "Put our problems all in a row/Watch them fall like dominoes"

Okay.

Absolutely 100% OTM. My favourite song of all time.

... except that their comments are wholly unilluminating. I was so disappointed by the lack of insight offered by the dialogue. The Pet Shop Boys have probably the most interesting back-catalogue of singles and promo videos of any of their peers, and Chris Heath had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to draw out the thoughts of Neil Tennant, one of the most intelligent and articulate pop stars of the twentieth century, on this treasure trove of finely-wrought picture and sound.
Heath's commentary, however, rarely rises above the level of, "That's a nice hat you're wearing there, Chris."

As I listened and the words hit my ears / I cried sudden tears

"Domino Dancing" is easily one of my top 3 PSB tracks - my reasons for which are detailed on another thread. Please note that Dan tends to have excellent taste in artists, but then either loves or reviles random and/or odd tracks for reasons which escape me!

Also: Always thought Tennant's allusion to Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station in "West End Girls" was dead cool as well.

This is actually a direct reference to Lenin's famous itinerary during WWI.

Come on! It's worth it for Lowe's hat knowledge alone!

And to answer the question, no. "Rent" is the best thing they've done.

Sure, some of their conversation is entertaining. But almost none of it is insightful, which I found disappointing. They're very interesting people, and at its best, their work has been culturally significant. Chris Heath knows that, and I feel he should have tried to induce a more reflective or analytical mood for the voiceover session.
Ah well. Screw art, let's dance.

Absolutely 100% OTM. My favourite song of all time.

WOW mine too!

I wonder how high it will rank in the 80s poll (if it ever happens).

This is actually a direct reference to Lenin's famous itinerary during WWI.

The title of the book is as well. One in the same, Spence.

xpost

A funny PSB story (also from my teenage years):

When I was a senior in high school, I got good enough grades to take classes at UCSC. I was a nice kid, but pretty clueless. So one day I'm riding the bus up to UCSC, with a PSB t-shirt on (the one with Neil holding a giant bundle of long-stemmed roses), and this guy starts chatting with me about what a big Pet Shop Boys fan he is, and how I should come over to his dorm room and check out his collection of rare B-sides, etc.

Needless to say, I was very excited. We made plans, and I ended up in his suite, listening to Pet Shop Boys records and tapes for a few hours, before heading back home. He seemed a little confused and annoyed when I left, but I thought nothing of it at the time, and we never hung out again.

It took me about 4 years before I realized what a clueless straight-boy I was.

My favorite PSB song is "Being Boring."

I remember hating West End Girls when it came out. I didn't come around until later.

And is there a thread for "Electronic," my favorite supergroup of all time?

This is actually a direct reference to Lenin's famous itinerary during WWI. "

i always hoped it was a reference to finlandskii station in st petersburg. thanks for confirming!

The title of the book is as well. One in the same, Spence.

Or rather, is there something about the song that leads you to believe this is a specific reference to the book, and not just to the historical event? Did the book 'popularize' the event?

You may be on the money here, Spence. I was under the impression that it was the book that popularized the expression, but I might be entirely wrong.

Post- that release, probably lots that might be better. Their quality control seemed to go to shit & they became the joke that was always made about all their songs 'sounding the same'. They seemed to get lazy & much less inspired.

Sounded so clunky I remember though. It was like they ran out of gracefulness in musical and lyrical ideas really suddenly. Which was about the only thing that really saved them when paired with the thin and near-formulaic programming they had in their music.

Lest anyone forget that the negative effects of rockism are REAL!

wow, i had no idea....i always had to defend my love for psb.

I had no idea either. Never understood what people liked about them.

Pet Shop Boys >>> Morbid Angel

x-post

pre-1996 PSBs: probably not
post-1996 PSBs: plenty

I love the PSBs. I actually am a huge fan of "One and One Make Five", love the way the "people must be jumping" works as both Todd Terry style cheesey chorus line and actually part of the song too.

(PS "Domino Dancing" is fucking awful and you are all worse people for supporting it ok thx XOXOXOXO MWAH)

I don't really know where to start discussing the PSB, so many good songs, I like about 5 times more PSB songs than any other act.

Bobby O apparently wrote W.E.G. and then the PSBs 'stole' it.

Depeche Mode = music for teenagers
PSB = music for adults

As far as I understand, Bobby O went back and did another mix in the early 90s. So sez my friend anyway.

B-b-b-but Depeche Mode is all pop, surely, no?

I've really come round to DM's singles though, at least up until they went rock, a ridiculosity too far.

Depeche Mode, on the other hand (whom I love, I should point out), take VERY CAREFUL AND STUDIED MEASURES to appear conventionally cool at virtually every turn.

That may not have been the rule circa this photo....

http://est.hu/imgup/regi/est/konnyu/interju/2003-01/a_depeche_mode-tol_a_yazoo-n_at_az_erasure-ig_3.jpg

I think that, much like I don't give a flying fuck what music Stormy likes, he doesn't give a flying fuck what music I like.

I still can't get my head around Depeche Mode as more pop than PSB, Depeche Mode are alot darker and more serious, to me, I think that's why they've always had a more public level of credibility.

I mean, outside of this thread, in the real world, there are so many people who think the PSBs are just an embarassing blip from the 80s and early 90s? I don't mean total ignorami either, isn't that kind of a recieved wisdom among alot of music fans?

in the real world, there are so many people who think the PSBs are just an embarassing blip from the 80s and early 90s?

Yeah, and you absolutely NEVER EVER hear their songs on the radio (except for "West End Girls" when my local radio station does those "80s Flashback Weekend"s). How many times did the entirety of U.S. radio play "Can You Forgive Her"? TWO?

Dan OTM about their post-Introspective American profile.

I disagree -- for instance, I remember "Go West" getting a lot of video play. But after "Very", they disappeared into a pit, absolutely.

Also, this DM/PSB teenagers/adults things is straying into r*ckism (sorry) -- obviously there's no a priori reason why one should find greater artistic value in "adult" themes as opposed to "teenaged" themes. (I'm not sure that anybody is arguing that, but I think the implications are there in certain posts).

There's nothing wrong with teenaged themes - the time-honored themes of having fun, sex, drinking, breaking the rules, rebelling, etc are the staples of much of the rock canon. However, Depeche Mode's themes are more the themes of an adolescent who prematurely wants to be old - who thinks they understand more than they do - who's just read Nietzsche for the first time and thinks they have figured something out that the rest of the world hasn't - who takes themselves way too seriously and resents the world for not playing along. And Depeche Mode has absolutely zero ironic distance between themselves and this adolescent viewpoint and no discernable sense of humor - which makes their stuff kind of hard for an adult to swallow with a straight face.

::nods:: Amen! It always horrified me when DM, PSB, New Order were spoken of in the same breath.

Yes, yes, but grouping and context played such a role, though. (Maybe this is mentioned upthread.) I always noted that in terms of general marketing and 'audience' as perceived the four key figures in 80s alt Anglophilia in a KROQ etc. sense were Depeche, New Order, the Cure and the Smiths, each of which had very different goals, aesthetics and approaches. (PSB due to the immediate pop success were similar yet removed, but could still easily be lumped in.)

YET ANOTHER REASON TO HATE THAT FUCKING SONG.

"Domino Dancing": The song that drove PSB off the American Top 40. THANKS A TON GUYS.

This doesn't really apply outside of "Black Celebration"-era DM. Also, lyrics have never been DM's strongest asset, and abviously Martin Gore's lyrics can't measure up to Neil Tennant's. Fortunately, there are lots of other things to love about DM.

This is a completely adolescent reading of Depeche Mode.

BUT ANYWAY Pet Shop Boys: GREBT.

Back to our regular scheduled programming.

I would love to see this.

Depeche Mode have credibility? DM strive to be dark and serious, but I think quite a bit of it rings hollow. This isn't to say that it's crap, but that it's simply teen-angst-courting artifice.

I mean, outside of this thread, in the real world, there are so many people who think the PSBs are just an embarassing blip from the 80s and early 90s? I don't mean total ignorami either, isn't that kind of a recieved wisdom among alot of music fans?

I know more people who'd be embarassed to have their copies of Black Celebration discovered in their collection than anything by the PSB,

"Leave in Silence" admittedly not their most Geir-friendly song, but, you know, "News of the world".

xpost

I believe that Susan has said that she lives in San Francisco.

Well, at least nobody that I talk about music with. I don't know any total rock purists. Most people I know are either music nerds like me who like a little bit of everything, or else they are very casual music listeners who have a few acts that they listen to, which might be pop, neo-folk, rock, country or whatever, but though they might have a favorite style they usually profess to like a few things outside that style as well.

Yes, they did have that look, although they didn't appear a lot on the video. BTW I live in Montreal too.

I wonder if they're so thoroughly off the radar partly because of Tennant coming out in '94, letting programmers shunt them into a 'gay' cul de sac.

OTM

Likely because Much Music caned that video when it came out. "What Have I Done to Deserve This" and "Go West" also got a fair bit of airplay, but nothing close to what "Domino Dancing" got.

Really? I wish I could've seen your costume!

Zilch.

As for the Eminem song, it was all the talk in rockcrit circles for a couple of months (Dre even considered issuing a response record), but no one else knew about it.

That further proves my point! They were the only people talking about it!

"The Night I Fell in Love", it's on Release

Yes there was. There were also hot guys.

May take a minute to load.

Basically, it's like New Order but with a witty gay dude as a singer/lyricist instead of an illiterate moron, not a bad idea!

Opportunities seems to define the 80s pretty well, or at least the 80s as I imagined it was in NYC from movies as a child...Gordon Gecko, Less Than Zero, etc...

So, yeah...Pet Shop Boys...sweet.

Yes!

(nb I love New Order, esp. nowadays)

Good dance floor is a different matter, House was the real problem for PSBs. Their great love is hi-energy/italo disco and that slightly naff sensibility worked great when remixed by mid 80s greats like Pettibone. Like Madonna, who similarly does disco naiff really well. they produced some thrilling pre-house disco moments when guided by the right collaborators. However come the great death of songs that was House they sounded very old fashioned. At the time I was surprised that they never did a blue monday.. ie a real vocal less dance floor hit. Maybe they had house alteregos? Or maybe Chris isn't actually as good as Neil thinks he is. That is probably the million dollar question.

Few real club classics despite two decades of trying - they work better as home music than house...

"At night, the people come and go
They talk too fast, and walk too slow
Chasing time from hour to hour
I pour the drinks and crush the flowers"

which I've always wanted to believe is a back-handed allusion to "in the room the women come and go talking of michaelangelo."

Basically, it's like New Order but with a witty gay dude as a singer/lyricist instead of an illiterate moron

This is officially the most ridiculous thing I've heard all week.

How exactly is that the Pet Shops have 'gone wrong' as it were? I am well aware of the truth of this assertion, but it seems a little curious that they should have done so. "Behaviour" and "Very" are utterly terrific records, and such a sharp fall-off seems implausible.

"Before" was clearly an effort to make that elusive club anthem alluded to above, as was "Paninaro '95", and neither was quite brilliant, if certainly neither bad. I must admit I am very fond of "Single Bilingual", the title-track and single of their 1996 album; it has a very amusing lyric, a sing-song melody and thunderous, stampeding South American percussion. But the album overall didn't quite work, did it? And since then I only really know the singles, which are sometimes decent but ultimately *aren't essential*, and that would never have been right for prime PSBs.

But Spencer posits more of a class battle, I'd guess, between the Essex, left school at 16, boys and the ex grammar school student favourites. I have always felt that Depeche Mode were the outsiders - less dancefloor, more synth rock after they abandoned clean cut pop. Would you see Soft Cell & Human League as in some way bridging the gap?

All, except probably NO who were more generally liked, developed rabid cult followings. Both PSBs and Erasure fan clubs for example seemed to have become key meeting places for gay teens. Though fan clubs lie outside my direct experience and I have only heard annecdotal evidence...

There is no way the PSBs spent two decades, or anytime at all, in my opinion trying to make club hits, their music is intentionally camp and ott to avoid becoming middlebrow or accepted, at least that's what I would very very strongly believe. They coated everything in pop to avoid becoming middlebrow or canonical in a traditional way.

My point was that House was a disaster for them. Prior to house djs like Mark Moore would drop PSBs records in with Italo-disco, Jam & Lewis tracks etc And they were hanging round in clubs themselves. After 1987 you never heard PSBs played by any decent club dj. They sort of lost their confidence and held onto an outdated sound. Why they didn't start DJing is an odd question..

and I don't think "pop" is or ever was an outdated sound, their music is no less weakened by time than that of the house music guys of the era, indeed stands up alot more than most.

regardless of where they performed, I simply don't hear the PSBs as music of any era (except perhaps the very late stuff) as failed attempts at house. They are a pop act, they never wanted to become fully house, what would have been the point? Would have been just jumping on a bandwagon.

Is there even one house track on their "Back To Mine"?

Not to say they didn't like house music, of course they did, but what you like and even what you perform at does not equate to wanting to be that sound. They are the essence of pop, a concept which has infinite possibilities, far beyond those of actual genres like house.

And I say this as a house fan/DJ. I only play one PSBs record ever, when I DJ, "Some Speculation", but I don't choose not to play the others because I think "these are crap house tracks", I don't play them because they are NOT house, the PSBs never could be anonymous enough to make house music and that is no failure in my eyes, for a band with several albums and that kind of career. Far far far from it.

"Always On My Mind " (#8)
"Domino Dancing" (#5)
"Left To My Own Devices" (#8)
"So Hard" (#4)
"How Can You Expect..." (#19)
"Where The Streets Have No Name" (#4)
"Can You Forgive Her" (#1)
"Go West" (#1)
"Absolutely Fabulous" (#7)
"I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" (#2)
"Paninaro 95" (#4)
"Yesterday When I Was Mad" (#4)
"Before" (#1)
"Somewhere" (#19)
"To Step Aside" (#1)
"Break For Love" (#1)
"I Don't Know What You Want..." (#2)
"New York City Boy" (#1)
"Sexy Northerner" (#15)

1. Discoteca
2. Single
3. Up Against It
4. It Always Comes As A Surprise
5. Hit and Miss
6. Before
7. Se A Vida E
8. The Survivors
9. Red letter day
10. Betrayed
11. To Step Aside
12. Saturday Night Forever

"Chris: This is where we invented left-field New York Deep House music."

They might post-rationalise a distaste for house, but in being cut off from the great youth movement of their time the PSBs were caught like the rat pack in the mid 50s surveying rock n roll. It was a moment of crisis. I am not devaluing what they did after 87 but it was a key moment for them.

I think this is true, but I don't think it was because the PSB cared less about having a dance floor hit. (For example, they've continued to use trendy remixers that they suspect will be the next big thing.) Rather I think it's mostly because the nature of dance music in the UK changed in the early 90s, becoming more of an specialized industry that could be a little snobby about "pop" acts and their "extended remixes," as well as a more segmented one (thus house became more distinguished from hi-nrg and the latter consigned to G.A.Y., etc).

YES, I TOTALLY REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I HEARD THAT SONG ON THE RADIO. I REJOICED - IT WAS LIKE "FINALLY, THEY ARE PLAYING MY KIND OF MUSIC ON MAINSTREAM RADIO!!!"

I was not a hipster in 1986 (I was in jr. high) but my initial reaction was that I liked "West End Girls" but liked "Suburbia" and "Opportunities" even more.

They've been working with Trevor Horn again. And they've said the new stuff is more "electronic and quite epic".

By the early-mid 90s, they had very much moved away from the pop spotlight, at least the teen audience one. They still had Top 20 hits, but they were more fan-bought rather than long-staying top 10 blockbusters, with the odd novelty-led exception like 'Go West'.

But....where they liked by the enlightened pop connoisseurs in the 80s? You know, the type who flock this place ;) Or perhaps those kind of people didnt exist then?

http://www.ondarock.it/photo/Popgroup.gif

vs.

http://bobdylan.50g.com/the_band.jpg

what's stunning Dan is how your opinion of PSB stuff is so spot on with mine, and yet wrt NewOrder we're at odds about half the time. odds in a good way of course.

is ILM still defined as the board that likes MBV and PSBs? or is it now pavement?

Conversely, the slamming bombast of "Opportunites" clicked with me from the get-go and the wistful charms of "Love Comes Quickly" made me a complete believer.

I remember one of my mates (a fellow American--I woould never really use "mate," obviously), a pen-pal really, who I discussed music with a lot, liking the Pet Shop Boys a lot in the 80s; and he was a bit of an "enlightened pop listener" or whatever the phrase was above. I honestly can't remember what they sound like, but I don't think they'd be my type of music anyway, especially now. Sorry about the syntax.

see: Steely Dan

Just for Dan, what do we all think of the Swe-pop cover of "Domino Dancing" done by PSB cover band "West End Girls"

Forthcoming singles by them will be "The Sound of the Atom Splitting" and "How I Learned To Hate Rock'n'Roll". No, I just made that up.

MP3 is here:
http://home.iprimus.com.au/edwardo/nodelete/domino.zip

Hawt... I used to masturbate a lot while watching her in Domino Dancing in the 90's.

my american impression is that America's an upside down world in which of the groups you listed New Order ranks at the bottom. relative to those groups, you would think that the Pet Shop Boys would fit right in but sometimes i think they are persona non grata in the states. maybe they are too into-eck-chew-ull for us but even among people who actually give considerable thought to 20+ year old synth groups i am surprised by how often they are dismissed altogether. seriously, their highest profile impression lately is probably having Opportunities serve as the opening theme music to a WB network reality show (in it's second season; Thais was the hottest) called Beauty And The Geek.

Btw. I have finally got to buy all those 2001 reissues and oh my are those "Further Listening" CDs great!

I guess I will burn myself "Further Listening" CDs to go with "Nightlife" and "Release" too, as they were never part of the rerelease series.

Myself and NI of this parish saw them in Manchester Sunday last and they were better than i've ever seen them. In amongst a feast of retina-searing staging and and
All The Big Hits there was 2 astonshing mid sections. One with Neil T in a tuxedo doing stripped down versions of 'Do I Have To?' and 'King's Cross' (complete with the black and white Derek Jarman 'Rent' footage from the 1989 tour as a backdrop) and another 'Please' album section of proto New York house featuring 'Why Don't We Live Together' and 'Two Divded By Zero'. All of this was produced by Stuart Price for the gigs.

From an oldskool fan's point of view it was as if i'd sat and written down what i might like them to do on this tour and they went 'yeah okay then!' while NI described it as 'the best concert i've ever seen'. Seriously is there *anything* better than the Pet Shop Boys?

another 'Please' album section of proto New York house featuring 'Why Don't We Live Together' and 'Two Divded By Zero'. All of this was produced by Stuart Price for the gigs.

waaant

the live album is coming out early 2010 produced by s price esquire so looks like you'll GET it!

This Bobby Orlando cover is one of my favorite songs, because it has all the satisfaction of a dance song but is equally strong in creating a character and story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErBt7UZzg2o&feature=PlayList&p=C4E4B26685C0FD16&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=43

Glasgow show was amazing.

that Bobby O cover is so great, one of my top 5 songs by them. there's a few crummy versions though, glad that's the proper one.

and yes, what a SHOW it was the other night. makes me think how dare the likes of oasis and kings of leon just clamber onstage and go through their 4/5 piece motions. i would love to read an interview with stuart price about what he did, how far his involvement went, etc

CD/ DVD package out tomorrow:

http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;0;-1;-1;-1&sku=312181

rats.

http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/news/2234

13 September 2010

Ultimate Pet Shop Boys

On November 1st Parlophone will release "Ultimate Pet Shop Boys", a "comprehensive greatest hits collection", featuring 19 hit singles in chronological order from "West End girls" to "Love etc." The Special Edition version will feature a DVD containing a series of classic BBC TV performances from "Top Of The Pops" and other shows recorded over the last 25 years as well as Pet Shop Boys' celebrated Glastonbury Saturday night headline show from June which the Daily Telegraph judged to be "one of the most spectacular Glastonbury moments ever".

_____

:/

http://images.childcostumes.com/billion-dollar-baby.jpg

There's so better than anyone else that sw00ds and I have begun another podcast, looser than our Roxy/Ferry chat three years ago. The first chapter concentrates on Electric and The Gay Thing.

http://rockcritics.com/2013/11/14/pet-shop-boys-critically-1/

the second chapter, which sw00ds hopes to post this week, has Chris Mol@anphy as special guest, discussing the Boys' peripatetic American chart fortunes.

excited to listen to this!

I've said this elsewhere, on other PSB threads, but it needs to be reiterated: Relentless is the best thing the Pet Shop Boys has ever done. Seriously, go back and listen to it. Exceptional.

Pet Shop Boys - Exceptionally

At last a name for the box set.

And we're live! Chris Mol@anphy, sw00ds, and I discuss "the monumental, if short-lived, American chart run."

http://rockcritics.com/2013/11/21/pet-shop-boys-critically-3/

not actually live.

but very introspective actually

yeah Relentless is amazing. it was especially so, getting it the day of release with VERY; EIGHTEEN new tracks in an amazing limited edition sleeve!

Why does this sound like a transmission from space? Not sure I can make it through this but the topic is fascinating to me.

Pushing through despite the sound, enjoying the commentary. Always On My Mind was huge in the South before the PSB's version, both Elvis and Willie Nelson versions.

if the sound is flawed, let me know so we can fix it. I thought it sounded fine to me this morning.

The links to download MP3s are broken – they all point to part 1. (The inline player works correctly.) But this is nice!

Links fixed!

thanks!

Okay, my entry to the whole podcast project is up, thanks to Scott and Alfred again for the invite!

http://rockcritics.com/2013/12/02/pet-shop-boys-critically-5/

Here’s the third in our series of PSB podcasts. This time Alfred Soto and I are joined by Ned Raggett to discuss Pet Shop b-sides, which leads into a discussion of: PSB’s Alternative (their double-disc b-sides collection); Sonic Youth vs. Pet Shop Boys; Diane Warren; Mick Jagger; Simon Reynolds… and much, much more!

specifically, Mick Jagger covering "Opportunities."

Downloaded these for listening on my commute and currently on the Woods/Soto/Molanphy discussion. Great stuff!

Two parts in, this is a great discussion.

Any love for "We All Feel Better In the Dark"? For me it's a highlight of the catalogue and a great moment in the Performance film, like Depeche Mode's "Waiting for the Night" rewritten as a quietly seductive club track.

Nice catch! Tbe songs were recorded during the same era.

it is my understanding that everyone loves "We All Feel Better in the Dark", although unless you're talking about the downtempo Disco 2 mix I don't see how you could associate it with being quiet

We all sound better in the dark

Speak up I can't see you

You don't think it has kind of a quiet and secretive feel, like something going on behind the scenes? It's no "Shameless" after all.

generally speaking sirens don't ever strike me as quiet and half of the song has sirens blaring over it, not to mention the screamed "GET DOWN!" sample or the heavily-filtered staccato off-beat synth line or the counterpoint syncopated sample on the verses

It splits the difference, in the end. Everything Dan notes is spot on, but it sounds like it's trying to be furtive/in the shadows (of course!) in the middle (or to the side?) of something chaotic.

supposedly it was originally "We All Look Better In The Dark" but then i'm sure you all know that. a better title either way imo.
it's worth it just for the way Chris says ".. and the beat is dead loud".

so how's speaking of sounding better in the dark, how's the quality of these recordings?

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.