The Pet Shop Boys' first twenty singles...

Neil: "As ever."

personal fave moment from the commentary is Chris's exhausted "..urgh God" when the shot of him at the start of What Have I Done To Deserve This comes on.

STUPID haircut. DICKIE bow.

reNAISSANCE

[you know what is a totally underrated PSB song, is "Heart"

Yeah, top 5 imo.

I may have said this before, even on this thread, but on what planet is Suburbia even a slight misstep?

fuck stopping this at “Liberation”

Ha everytime I see this thread I think the same thing. I love "Liberation".

'Liberation' is such an incredibly beautiful song. One of my favourites!

I may have said this before, even on this thread, but on what planet is Suburbia even a slight misstep?

It's only in the past few months that I've begun to enjoy the single mix, which always felt tacky and overblown when compared to the album version to me. That's where I feel the misstep is.

I love the breakdown in the middle of the Introspective version of 'Domino Dancing' ... "ALL DAY ALL D-D-DAY D-D-DAY DDDAY" - great use of stereo panning. Sublime.

Here are my twenty-five tracks.

My list would look very different, but great to see 'Burn' and 'Thursday' on there!

typical quality list

The only thing that sucks about these lists is that Soto seems to spend more time compiling 'em than posting here!

good mourning Alfred!

The only thing that sucks about these lists is that Soto seems to spend more time compiling 'em than posting here!

― Le Baton Rose (Turrican),

Maybe! I'm all over the political, book, film, and poll threads.

Was out doing some quick grocery shopping this afternoon when I heard a familiar voice and keyboard lick playing faintly over the speakers, and after listening intently for a while to figure out what it was, it turned out to be...

...'DJ Culture'

dance with me

I always find myself forgetting about 'DJ Culture' for some reason. I think it's because I very rarely put Discography on, but then I don't have a similar issue with 'Was It Worth It?' ... it's not a song I ever hear out "in the wild" anyway, so it was a real surprise.

"Was It Worth It" is by far the best song and one of their least heralded great songs -- Tennant's unofficial coming out record.

It's very cleverly done because it's only apparent if you're really paying attention. Like the second verse in which he acknowledges that he's in love with a guy and it's changed his life and he regrets it not happening much sooner, or later on in the song with "I reserve the right to live my life this way and I don't give a damn when I hear people say I'll pay the price that others pay" ...

It sure sounds to me like "then he smiled and I was lost" instead of you, too.

that's how I heard it for years

I think it's a better lyric/song than the later and similarly themed 'Metamorphosis', which is really on the nose. I dunno, Tennant must have thought he needed to address the subject as directly as possible after many missed it on 'Was It Worth It?' ... although there was a lot that went over people's heads as far back as Please, really.

"Later Tonight" is explicit as he was before 1991, and no straight man would have written "Why Don't We Live Together"

Yeah, 'Later Tonight' is so blatant!

or later on in the song with "I reserve the right to live my life this way and I don't give a damn when I hear people say I'll pay the price that others pay" ...

...all of these lines rhyming with (a very implicit) “gay”

since nobody ever got around to it back in 2003, a poke through Discogs suggests these were Chic's first 32 US commercial A-sides:

1977 Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)
1977 Everybody Dance
1978 NORMA JEAN - Saturday
1978 NORMA JEAN - Having A Party [Cooke] b/w So I Get Hurt Again [Nile/Bernard]
1978 NORMA JEAN - Sorceror
1978 Le Freak
1978 I Want Your Love
1979 SISTER SLEDGE - He's The Greatest Dancer
1979 SISTER SLEDGE - We Are Family
1979 SISTER SLEDGE - Lost In Music
1979 NORMA JEAN - High Society
1979 Good Times
1979 My Forbidden Lover
1979 My Feet Keep Dancing
1979 SISTER SLEDGE - Got To Love Somebody
1979 SHEILA & B. DEVOTION - Spacer
1980 SISTER SLEDGE - Reach Your Peak
1980 SISTER SLEDGE - Let's Go On Vacation
1980 SISTER SLEDGE - Easy Street
1980 SHEILA & B. DEVOTION - Your Love Is Good
1980 SHEILA & B. DEVOTION - King Of The World
1980 DIANA ROSS - I'm Coming Out
1980 DIANA ROSS - Upside Down
1980 DIANA ROSS - My Old Piano
1980 Rebels Are We
1980 Real People
1981 Stage Fright
1981 DEBBIE HARRY - Backfired
1981 DEBBIE HARRY - The Jam Was Moving
1982 Soup For One
1982 CARLY SIMON - Why b/w CHIC - Why
1982 Hangin'

I can hear what Tennant is on about when he says it's PSB doing SAW, because the verses of 'Was It Worth It?' remind me of late '80s Kylie stuff melodically, although not so much the chorus. I could totally imagine '80s Kylie doing a rendition of it.

so I rank the first twenty-five to thirty...

https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/ranking-pet-shop-boys-british-top-forty-singles-1985-1999/

Conspicuously, no Hague! (But yes Stephen Hague!) Knowing that none of those songs are necessarily bad, I can totally get with your grouping.

Not one is less than meh, and only after a certain year. What a run.

Just about to be live on BBC2 for their headline show at Hyde Park.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p07mddc9/radio-2-live-in-hyde-park-2019-radio-2-live-in-hyde-park

Chris's hat makes him look like odious pickup artist Mystery.

relistening to Bilingual and it's pretty much as i remember it - that is, not remembering much of it other than the stand out tracks. but rediscovered the closer, Saturday Night Forever and i think it didn't get the attention it really deserves.

that includes treatment from the boys themselves - it could be a proper disco anthem instead of what feels like an afterthought. Love To Infinity remix gets a bit closer - i wonder why it was never officially released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kms6dlWs078

So many old videos look like they’re viewed through ground glass, nice to be able to view them properly. Hopefully others will be remastered.

Five Pet Shop Boys music videos that have been updated with improved high definition audio and video tracks are now available to watch in a new YouTube playlist at the link below.https://t.co/Eubo2IeaTd pic.twitter.com/qN181pujNa

— Pet Shop Boys (@petshopboys) June 26, 2020

I don't know exactly when or why this started happening, but whenever I hear the synthy intro to Bon Jovi's "Living On a Prayer," at exactly where you would expect it to be I hear a British voice intoning, "Sooner or later, this happens to everyone ..."

lol

Taking Sides on songs with short spoken intros: "Love Comes Quickly" vs "Livin' on a Prayer" vs "Caribbean Queen"

vs Modern Love.

Now imagine Neil Tennant starting "Love Comes Quickly" with "She's so awesome."

As they did fifteen of these twenty songs last night I hold Tom's original collective judgment of their worth to be fully accurate. (DJP is still wrong about "Domino Dancing" of course -- and that was a LOUD crowd singalong.)

Best bit about the news of yet another compilation;
a Blu Ray with 66 videos

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/pet-shop-boys-smash-the-singles-1985-2020/

Great indeed, but my real hope is that they do a sequel/update to the amazing commentary track they did for the PopArt DVD -- and if that's not ported over somehow I'm holding onto my copy.

Hear, hear. A friend you and I have in common quote it all the time.

"Fabulous acting here."

"Unintentionally hilarious."
"As ever."

"Oh, look! We're doing choreography."

Chris Lowe's laugh at the end of the commentary for "Somewhere" lives in my head rent-free, as does "Ah...revenge" from the "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" commentary.

SO many highlights but Chris’s drawling, sighing
“Urrgh GOD.. “ when he sees himself at the start of ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’ is the one that has entered my lexicon.

"I look TERRIBLE! Stupid hair. Dickie bow."