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

Release has some other high points - I think London and Love is a Catastrophe are both pretty delightful.

Also rep for the opening three on Nightlife - amazing.

Leaving is a great song. I'm sure I liked a few other songs too but looking at the tracklisting, I can't remember which ones.

I really like Nightlife. I Don't Know What You Want and You Only Tell Me are both in my top 10 PSB singles. Love the Kylie duet too despite it being a little clumsy.

I love Nightlife a lot and agree that the opening salvo is breathtaking

I know that Nightlife has its fans, and those fans tend to really, REALLY like the record, but it has so far failed to grow on me. It's really frustrating, actually, because I'd really like to enjoy it like others seem to. It seems to be one of those records that there's no real consensus over - there's people who adore that record and others that could easily live without it.

"Yes" is a pretty good album but my expectations for it were ridiculously high considering how much I loved everything Xenomania was doing at the time. It is no exaggeration to say it's been my most anticipated album ever, by any artist. Disappointment was inevitable, but it does have some solid tracks.

"The Way It Used To Be" is probably my favorite PSB song of the past 10 or 15 years.

"Love etc." would have been perfect if it wasn't for that first verse. I don't know how it got past Brian Higgins, should've been vetoed immediately.

do you mean the "I believe that we can achieve" bit? I love it. He sounds like a lover using corporate jargon (hence the title).

No, no, I love that bit too!

I'm referring to the melody of "Boy, it's tough getting on in the world when the sun doesn't shine and a boy needs a girl..."

Also the lyrics are not great either.

I don't have a problem with that melody at all. In fact, I think 'Love etc.' is perfect as it is and there's literally nothing I'd change about it!

Melody is great, and a playful leadup to the bass melody of the chorus; lyrics are nothingy

So, I'm giving Nightlife another try tonight, and it's still not happening, really. I like 'I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore' and 'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk', but I would put neither up there with their strongest singles, and I like the production on 'Boy Strange' and the sweeping chords on 'In Denial'... The rest is striking me as ranging from "dull" ('Vampires', 'Radiophonic', 'The Only One') to execrable ('Closer To Heaven', 'Happiness Is An Option', 'New York City Boy')

You didn't mention "Boy Strange" or "Footsteps."

'Boy Strange' is one of my highlights of the record - I love the production on it, the way that it moves from the acoustic-led verses into the lightly psychedelic choruses. 'Footsteps', I'd place in the "dull" pile (it doesn't really do an awful lot for me) and 'For Your Own Good' isn't too bad, but I don't really think there's much of a song there, even if there's some nice production touches.

Overall, though, I'm left with the same impression I've always had about Nightlife, in that I feel the songwriting isn't really that strong. I genuinely think that Bilingual is a far stronger collection of songs, even if the track order isn't the greatest they could have come up with and even though I can understand why the style of the record might not be for everyone.

I guess that for me, Nightlife and Release represent the first big "dip" in the PSB discography, which they managed to climb out of with Fundamental, before dipping again with Yes and Elysium before miraculously recovering a second time with Electric. I'm hoping that Super represents a continuation of the quality of Electric rather than the beginning of another dip, but I feel confident that they'll never make another record as bad as Elysium.

I'm very happy with Disco 3 and not revisiting the other 2000+ ones.

Which isn't even knocking the other ones, just that I'm completely happy with Disco 3 song for song.

Elysium is the only record without anything worth saving; even if Super sucks it will still have "Pop Kids"

I dunno, I think 'Leaving' is a keeper, and I have a soft spot for 'Ego Music', but yeah, I'm happy to forget about the rest!

"I'm Happy to Forget the Rest" is a good song idea/concept.

this is probably as much to do with my age as anything else, but I always thought of Bilingual as being the last album from their 'classic' period, or at least the last album where they were seen as a contemporary act, with everything from Nightlife onward a 'late-period' album. I'm surprised whenever I'm reminded that Nightlife was released only three years after Bilingual, I remember Nightlife being very much sold as a comeback record at the time? Bilingual is wonderful anyway, I'm surprised that so many people seem to think that it's one of their weakest.

Agreed. Bilingual felt like a followup whereas Nightlife felt as it were released 7900 years later.

Yeah, that's pretty much the way I saw it too. I seem to remember 'Se A Vida E' being everywhere in 1996, whereas by the time of Nightlife they seemed to be struggling commercially. I think Radio 1 were even no longer playlisting their singles by then?

Look at their American chart positions too.

I think that 'Se A Vida E' was the last of their big iconic hits, the ones that would probably be remembered by a majority of random people stopped in the street (looking at the UK chart placings 'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk' actually reached the same position - they both got to #8 - but I don't think it had anything like the amount of radio play or general ubiquity of 'Se A Vida E')

(that said, although people remember 'Se A Vida E' I'm not sure that they remember it was a Pet Shop Boys song? I don't really have anything to back back this up, but I get the impression that people would be less likely to associate the song with the PSBs than their other best remembered hits, say 'West End Girls', 'Opportunities', 'Always On My Mind' and 'Go West'? maybe because they don't appear in the video?)

According to Wiki, Se a Vida was a considerable European hit.

More people here know "New York City Boy" than "Se A Vida E". It was a genuine hit in Canada.

looking at the UK chart placings 'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk' actually reached the same position - they both got to #8 - but I don't think it had anything like the amount of radio play or general ubiquity of 'Se A Vida E'

As I remember it, it didn't... nowhere near! Apart from one TV performance of 'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk' I actually don't recall hearing any Nightlife single on radio or TV, whereas 'Se A Vida E' was in regular rotation on radio and on MTV Europe etc. Weirdly, I remember 'I Get Along' and 'Home and Dry' getting far more radio play than any Nightlife single, although not to the extent of 'Se A Vida E' ...

I remember being so shocked when You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk went in at number eight. I'm not sure I'd even heard it before it charted (I didn't have the album until a few years after). Think it just did well as sales were low in those first few weeks of the new year. The previous two singles scraped into the top 15 after a decent amount of exposure.

The single was one of the most widely played records on UK radio in 1996 and its video set in a water park was shown on both MTV and VH1 on a regular basis that summer.

It was the second single to be lifted from the album Bilingual, which saw the duo take on a Latin influence as a reaction to the Britpop explosion that was prevalent at the time.

In the US, the single was released by Atlantic Records in April 1997 with "To Step Aside" as a double A-side. Thirteen mixes of the track were commissioned and spread over various formats, several of them promotional only. The single did not chart in the States, but following its success in the UK it became a major success all over Europe.

It was the second single to be lifted from the album Bilingual, which saw the duo take on a Latin influence as a reaction to the Britpop explosion that was prevalent at the time.

Yeah, I remember them talking about this in interviews at the time, and it did sound (and was) very apart from the whole Britpop thing that was going on then, but it still didn't prevent it from being a hit.

'Before', on the other hand, I seem to remember not being particularly well-received, even though it eventually went Top 10.

So, there's a new b-side out there apparently! I haven't heard it yet, though!

There's (I think) 7 mixes of The Pop Kids, plus In Bits and One Hit Wonder. Something else?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaBUT6Jx8eM

It's on Spotify too.

WHERE IS MY ADVANCE COPY

Ooh, new Chris Lowe interview at The Quietus too!

Apparently, this record is supposed to be a follow on from Electric and then they're planning to make another album with Price which is to be more in their ballad-heavy mode.

I'm sure no one will agree with this but

"The Pop Kids" < "In Bits"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLPP0nAJxBo

I love everything about Happiness.

That is some straight-up EDM, but... I like it?

if that were made by anyone but the Pet Shop Boys I would have turned it off after 45 seconds...

Yeah probably.

CHRIS: that were made by anyone but the Pet Shop Boys I would have turned it off after 45 seconds...

NEIL: Yeah probably.

first part of a 4 hour (!) docu series starting as we speak

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b073qwf8

Wow -- they actually (heh) discuss songs ("Violence," "Two Divided by Zero," "Kings Cross").

wow shit yeah, and Young Offender!

I haven't heard any of that documentary yet, but haven't they talked about those songs in detail a million times before? At this stage, I'm more interested in how the songs take shape musically and their methods of building up a track in the studio than I am about what the songs are about or the inspirations for the lyrics.

You can read that in the liner notes of the 2001 reissues.

Next part on now!

Actually laughed out loud when Chris started talking about 'Hold On' ... "The fans didn't appreciate the effort that went into this, because the fans don't like this do they? That's why they're wrong. Where they're wrong."