Pet Shop Boys -- Super (another Stuart Price production)

highlight of part 2 was Neil bursting into I Have Confidence from The Sound Of Music and Chris pissing himself. i don't know of 2 bandmates who can make each other laugh so much or appear to get on so well.

Yeah, 'So Hard' is one of my favourites and I don't think it spoils the flow of Behaviour at all, and I think their "issue" with 'A Red Letter Day' is more in the recording rather than the song itself, but it's very rare you'll hear them slag off their work. If anything, they (particularly Neil) get really defensive about their post-Very work.

Oh come on, Chris takes the piss out of literally everything they do, especially when Neil takes himself too seriously.

(Having said that - a friend of mine was a backing dancer during the Yes tour. Apparently the Boys got fairly miffed when the dancers all openly slagged off Winner after it was first played to them.)

well, how can you dance to that drivel?

So, this definitely isn't as good as Electric. Anyone else heard it yet?

This album has exceeded my expectations so far. I'd say the only thing still bothering me is Price's "cold" production. I know it's not a good word to describe it, but I can't think of a better one atm. I think probably any other producer would have done a better job. I wonder how good this could've been in the hands of Greg Kurstin, for instance.

This one's my favorite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J50nLCeTHIk&index=10&list=PLxFN5K79aSHDQYsre_8b_nQW2Mvru_waR

A couple of tracks excepted, this is smashing. I love "Twenty-Something" and "Groovy."

I still haven't heard it yet, but what I've read/heard about it seems to be mostly positive.

So, having my first listen to this now... the intro to 'Twenty-Something' sounds like it could soundtrack a 16-bit side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game from the early '90s...

like "Young Offender"?

Ha, yeah!

I'm not too far into the album yet, but one thing that's striking me so far is that I don't think this record sounds as good as Electric production-wise.

I was not expecting "Sad Robot World" to sound like an Air pastiche

This has been growing on me a lot over the last few days. Pazzo and Groovy are a bit throwaway but I'm enjoying the rest. The Dictator Decides is my current favourite. Brilliant lyrics. I really love Undertow too. The chorus reminds me so much of New Order.

"The Dictator Decides" reminds me of "Hairstyle Of The Devil" by Momus.

Oh yeah, that's a great comparison.

I cannot get Happiness out of my head. I just keep repeating "it's it's it's it's it's it's" over and over to myself.

Gave it a first listen tonight -- I like it but it feels like more of a grower than Electric. But that said I'm also glad they didn't simply do Electric Part 2.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too. I'm having a second listen to it now and it's sounding a little better than the first listen. Unsure at this stage at where I would rank it in PSB's discography... but I will say that at the moment I'm not feeling it as much as Electric, Fundamental or even Bilingual. It may grow on me further, though.

It pains me to say it, but I'm thinking at this stage that I'd rate this album roughly about the same as Yes.

you need more you need more

I like it about as much as Nightlife. I definitely prefer it to Yes.

Yeah, after another couple of listens to this I'm fairly comfortable with ranking this one about the same as Yes, in that I'd rank it higher than Nightlife, Release and Elysium, but it doesn't touch Bilingual, Fundamental or Electric. There's some brilliant moments on Super, but I was expecting a little more from the production this time around because Price did such a wonderful job on Electric. I'm also getting a kinda weird hollow feeling from this record. Here's hoping the next one, which is meant to be ballad-heavy, is a bit of a better effort.

I'm rating this as marginally better than "Yes" and a significant improvement over "Electric," which didn't do much for me (I know I'm in the minority here).

I hope someone talks them out of a ballad album.

I only realised recently that the second half of Yes really isn't that strong. The Way It Used To Be is probably my favourite song they've done in the last fifteen years but apart from that, it just passes me by.

Yeah, a ballad album doesn't excited me at all.

Well, it depends on the ballads for me. If it's stuff like "Always" or "The Crying Game" I'm down. If they're more "Numb" or "Winner," no thank you.

My review: http://www.spin.com/2016/04/review-pet-shop-boys-super/

Nice review, Alfred. And I agree about "Undertow," the only track I'm not feeling immediately.

I'm with daavid upthread, I like "In Bits" quite a bit and wish it was an album track.

But yeah, early (first listen) impressions: this is really good!

Loving this album very much lately :)

I haven't felt compelled to listen to it since those first listens, whereas with Electric I found it hard to not play it. I'm not saying they've made a complete dud this time around, but I don't feel much of a connection to it either.

I think I like it better than the last album.

No "Thursday" on this album, alas.

The Pop Kids is the only song that is of the same quality of Thursday, Vocal and Fluorescent but I am enjoying Super a lot. I still think Groovy and Pazzo could have been left off. I ended up loving every song on Electric, even Bolshy.

I really wish "The Dictator Decides" had more hints of it being a relationship allegory because it's nearly perfect otherwise.

Did someone already post this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USOSo67Trn8

https://twitter.com/empiresend/status/718493856065527809

Jerk.

Well, finally tried to listen to this one all the way through, and it's pretty dire. The music is great, but the lyrics are hard-to-take, and feel especially shoehorned-in. A couple of good mostly-instrumental tracks, though.

^^^ dictator has decided to terminate your life

Death by eye-rolling at horrible lyrics!

Lyrics are fine, exceptional in the case of "The Pop Kids." More importantly, I can dance to this thing.

McNabb tweeted this back in February as well: https://twitter.com/empiresend/status/702868868126154752

did Tennant once give the Icicle Works a bad review in Smash Hits or something?

a truth seeker

Yeah, I've gone cold on this one pretty quickly, it seems :(

xxpost - what a twat!

Who in their right mind could possibly dislike Neil Tennant.

McNabb appears to be a massive cunt if you check out his social media posts

Fall tour:
http://petshopboys.co.uk/tour

I'll have to give this another listen to see if I can get into it a little more.

And the video for "Twentysomething" is out, and it's marvelous.