The Pet Shop Boys' first twenty singles...

I'll repeat this question, as I was listening to it driving home:

Slight off-topic: do you guys prefer the re-recorded version of "A Man Could Get Arrested" or the version released as the B-side to "West End Girls" (and currently found on the Please reissue)? The B-side version has real drums, bass, and zealous backup singers; it's possibly the only concession to mid eighties production fads they ever recorded – and all the better for it.

Such brilliant thread. Made me put on Alternative disc 1, which I hardly ever listen to since there is a disc 2. PSB might not be the best pop group in the world (or actually they might just be) but they are to me the most important pop act ever.

"Was It Worth it?" deserves more love.

LOST IN THE HIGH STREET
WHERE THE DOGS RUN
ROAMING SUBURBAN BOYS

i can say this as a reformed cynic of love and all that goes with it: "love comes quickly" is to me one of the best songs ever. the couplet "just when you least expect it/just what you least expect" is, in delivery and sentiment, devastating.

Erasure were a better band, a better singles act, and have a better discography than the Pet Shop Boys

so very wrong

great thing about pet shop boys is that you can dig the lyrics whether a cynic of love or a reformed cynic of love.

I love this thread. What the hell ever happened to Tom (Groke)?

Best PSB single: "Domino Dancing"

Great thing about PSB: You can listen to the music and vocalist and still get the emotion.

Popjustice, predictably, getting excited about their new single. I'm sure it's going to be pretty awful, because let's face it, "I'm With Stupid" was completely shit.

omar otm

Disco 3 is going in my top 10 favorites of this decade.

"love comes quickly" is to me one of the best songs ever.

And so underrated. The curious thing is that I always forget how wonderful it is. Then, every time I hear it, I'm floored by its beauty and power.
I've always thought that its pretty but inchoate video let it down, and I recently read an interview with the director in which he declared it a "disaster". (That said, it's a masterpiece by comparison to the clip for Let's Go All the Way, which remains my all-time benchmark for visual incoherency.)

I'm sure this has been asked before (probably on this very thread!) but I'll ask again since there's no some time and distance:

Are the reissued albums worth getting if you own Alternative?

Yes indeed -- some of the versions of the B-sides are different, plus all the remixes, various oddities, etc. Not to mention stellar sound and the great song-for-song liner notes.

"Darling you were wonderful, you really were Quite Good!"

Yes yes and yes. (A Man Could Get Arrested appears in 7" version, rather than the '12" Alternative mix', and Paninaro, Don Juan, We All Feel Better In The Dark, Losing My Mind and Music For Boys all appear in different mixes to the 7" versions that Alternative has. Plus there are about 50 non-b-side tracks, AND all the post-Alternative b-sides. And it's pretty much worth it for the commentary alone.)

the version of "A Man Could Get Arrested" on the Please reissue is fabulous! One of my favorite PSB songs, period.

To honor the thread starter: his new Guardian piece on two of those singles in particular:

http://bit.ly/KzBxe

Great piece, although I wish he said a bit more about "Being Boring". Really looking forward to his blurb about "West End Girls" on Popular.

God, I never made the connection between Tom (Groke) and Tom Ewing. Ugh. But it's a lovely piece, and his first post here is one of my favorite bits of fan writing.

Why doesn't he post on ILM anymore? Or maybe he does under another alias?

He checks in every so often. Job, family, etc. keep him pretty busy and his Internet time is concentrated on Freaky Trigger (and Twitter!).

― Mr. Snrub, Friday, 2 October 2009 12:59

― Groke, Thursday, 1 October 2009 23:22

I find this perspective on the Pet Shot Boys pretty compelling, and I share Tom's love for almost all these singles.

And yet, "Liberation" is one of my favorite of them all. All those gorgeous interlocking rhythm-guitar and synth riffs, the kaleidoscopic movement through different tonal regions, the lush stacked vocals at the end of the chorus. I like the tenderness and vulnerability of the lyrics, too -- Neil seems less arch, less detached.

So I guess I don't really buy the thesis here.

Sorting that out a bit more clearly: I agree with the idea that there's something magical about these songs, but not with the notion that Liberation breaks the spell.

This is all of them, shockingly, but mix in their even better 7-EP run from The Grand Hour ('93) to Tigerbomb ('95) and you have 22

1 Motor Away (1995)
2 The Official Ironmen Rally Song (1996)
3 Cut-Out Witch (1996)
4 Bulldog Skin (1967)
5 I Am A Tree (1997)
6 Teenage FBI (1999)
7 Surgical Focus (1999)
8 Glad Girls (2001)
9 Chasing Heather Crazy (2001)
10 Universal Truths And Cycles (2002)
11 Everywhere With Helicopter (2002)
12 Cheyenne (2002)
13 Back To The Lake (2003)
14 My Kind Of Soldier (2003)
15 The Best Of Jill Hives (2003)

Is it wrong that I like the bangin' house mix of "Liberation" that is entirely unrecognizable to the original so so so much?

xpost their his

First-rate.

I was just thinking about this thread today -- and Dan's eternal hatred of "Domino Dancing."

i still don't get the hate 4 'domino dancing' tbh. 'viva la vida' tho transcends everything else coldplay have ever done by so far that you doubt it's actually by them.

Well, there's your seal of approval!

http://twitter.com/petshopboys/status/15184937448

still really irked by the Viva La Vida cover, moreso because they keep it v distant from Did You See Me Coming in their live set when imo the latter was clearly already inspired by VLV so why not just go from one to the other if at all?

"Domino Dancing" is killer! Really, what's not to love about it?

Adore this very rare glimpse of both Boys playing live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlF_z9tMnnM

They *hated* this too! It's the reason they didn't perform live again for 4 more years and i think *never* again on telly?

Man god bless these guys.

I think Tennant said they hated one of their other '86 promo appearances, during which they were pretty drunk:

This one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7SZ8naFjDQ

Amusing to hear Neil's Geordie accent slipping out during the Q&A...

this is better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M10gkdP6tt4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ACMysebtQ

still baffles me that this wasn't a single.

^^^^ Johnny Marr's favorite PSB song.

true!

Adore this very rare glimpse of both Boys playing live:

Tennant playing guitar onstage doesn't count? Synthist.

Did anyone catch them at Glastonbury? Were they as terrific as a couple of the clips indicated?

I watched the set live on BBC3 and it was pretty great. Same one I saw them doing on tour some months earlier, but Neil was LOVING the Glasto crowd.