Prior to deciding to go in randomly among the 7″ singles for the new Sunday series in 2023, I did give a brief consideration to Pet Shop Boys being the focus of an extended series in a similar fashion to The Fall in 2021/22. I have been picking up second hand copies of a few of the 7″ singles in recent times, and there’s also the fact that many of their re-mastered and re-released CDs have been extended to include various b-sides and mixes from their singles. In the end, I felt it would just be too tall an ask to actually track down everything, and besides, while I’m a huge fan, I appreciate not everyone who drops into TVV feels the same.
Here’s wiki on today’s offering.
Suburbia is a song by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. It was remixed and released as the fourth single from the duo’s debut studio album, Please (1986), and became the band’s second UK top-10 entry, peaking at #8.
The song’s primary inspiration is the 1983 Penelope Spheeris film Suburbia, and its depiction of violence and squalor in the suburbs of Los Angeles; in addition, the tension of the Brixton riots of 1981 and of 1985 hanging in recent memory led Neil Tennant of the duo to thinking about the boredom of suburbia and the underlying tension among disaffected youth that sparked off the riots at the least provocation.
The various versions of the song are punctuated by sounds of suburban violence, riots and smashing glass, as well as snarling dogs on the re-recorded single version (extended even further on the music video), which were derived from typical scenes in suburbia. The Please version of the song sounds very sparse in comparison. The version used for the video was the song that appeared on the PopArt compilation in 2003.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Suburbia
The b-side has long been one of the duo’s most loved among the fan base, partly for the fact that the majority of the vocal, albeit more spoken than sung, is provided by Chris Lowe.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Paninaro
It is seemingly about an 80s Italian youth subculture whose members hung around US-style fast food restaurants and had preferences for designer clothing and disco music. Paninaro was actually released as a limited edition 12″ single in Italy in 1986.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Shame re the singles as the b sides always have care , attention and interest . Might do an ICA of their best b sides . Well that’s if I get the. 3 part ICA I started 3 years ago ever finished and sent in
You know that friend you have that doesn’t appreciate a band or artist and then finally get it? and you get annoyed with them for not realising it sooner? It pretty much took me to watching their Glastonbury 2022 set to fully appreciate PSB – bit annoyed I didn’t like them a bit sooner…D’oh!
I would have liked a series of their singles – they were a really great singles band!
They are one of the all time great B-side bands in my opinion. Many of them were A-sides that any other band would have given far more prominence. A B-sides ICA is a great idea!
I’ll just add another voice in support of a PSB B-sides ICA, if someone has the time to pull one together. An unenviable task to narrow it down to ten tracks, I’d say.
PSBs are fucking great, their 80s/ 90 singles especially so. Any series/ ICA based around them would be brilliant, a B-sides one would be ace. Paninaro is superb and as you mention, celebrates a very well dressed Italian youth cult.
I’ve already seen your PS(B) to today’s post (16th) so my comment is slightly moot but I’d have cast a vote in favour of either a PSB ICA or a singles series.
An excellent series. The B sides clearly got a lot of attention from the PSBs and ‘Was that what it was?’ is a personal favourite. There were even special editions: from memory a 10inch of West End Girls in a completely different cut folder sleeve, a very cool poster with the 12 inch of ‘Love comes quickly’ with a see through cover so you could make your own cover like with New Order’s ‘Low-life’ and a double 7 inch of ‘Suburbia’. I think that had the very droll ‘Jack the lad’ and ‘your funny uncle’ as extras.