Month: April 2023

The series has reached 1999, and if I now begin to appear a little unsure of myself, then it’s all down to the fact that I’ve only just got familiar with the songs as part of the idea to do this series as I didn’t buy any of the singles or the next album at the time.   Indeed, after 1997,  not too many Pet Shop Boys songs were picked up at the time of release.

Two years after the Savoy Theatre residency and the release of the Noel Coward cover version, Pet Shop Boys came back with a single of their own,

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More

Released on 19 July 1999, it went straight into the charts at #15.   But, unlike so many of their other brand-new singles from the previous years, this one immediately plummeted right back out of the charts, dropping to #38 and then #57 before disappearing altogether.   In fact, this was the pattern that would be repeated with every subsequent PSB single thereafter, with fans buying the CD/vinyl/download within the first days of it being available, thus delivering a more than decent first-week chart position which would prove to be its peak.

As tunes go, it’s nothing terribly special.  I’d never accuse PSB of being boring (see what I did there?), but this is one which doesn’t have much in the earworm stakes.  Having said that, it borders on genius that the lines in all the verses seem to consist solely of questions.

2 x CDs and a cassette version were in the shops, along with a 12″ maxi single.  The vinyl offered 40 minutes worth of mixes of the single across six different versions.  CD1 had the single, two new tracks and the promo video, while CD2 had two remixes plus a cover version.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Silver Age
mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Screaming

Silver Age is a slow, almost ponderous number that took a few listens to grow on me.  The fact I came to it in 2023 rather than 1999 might have something to do with it…..I spent ages trying to recall what it reminded me of, rather than taking it on its own merits.  Oh, and in the end I kept thinking of Portishead but with the hip-hop elements all removed.

Screaming also starts off in a ponderous manner. Until the 18-second mark.  Turns out that it had originally been released at the end of 1998 on Psycho: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a CD tie-in with the Gus Van Sant remake of the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece. As b-sides go, it’s good fun.

CD2

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Je t’aime… moi non plus

The thing is, although made available on CD2, it isn’t really a Pet Shop Boys recording.

It was originally included on a September 1998 release called We Love You, a collaboration involving modern artists and musicians.  It comprised a book of 118 pages and a CD with 18 songs.  PSB teamed up with Sam Taylor-Wood for a bonkers take on the infamous Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg duet, with the artist taking the female vocal role while the male vocal is computerised, but most likely Chris Lowe having a bit of fun.   Make of it what you will. I think it’s a load of nonsense, albeit it occasionally threatens to break into the sort of tune Air were releasing around the same time.

The next single came out on 27 September 1999.

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – New York City Boy

Was this written as a sort of ‘thank you’ to Village People for Go West?  It’s certainly a real throwback to disco sounds of the late 70s.

It did marginally better than the previous single in that it reached #14.

Again, there were 2 x CDs, cassette, and a 12″ maxi single.  Once again, the vinyl offered 40 minutes worth of mixes of the single, but this time across five different versions.  CD1 had the single, one new track, one remix and the promo video, while CD2 had the single, one other new track, one different remix and some video footage of a solar eclipse, the reason for which I’ll get to shortly.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – The Ghost of Myself

Once again, I find myself really enjoying a PSB b-side.   This is a track that wouldn’t have been out of place among the material released across the earliest of the albums. As I said, this is the era that has taken me almost quarter-of-a century to catch up with, and this is one of the few songs from the period that I regret taking so long to pick up on.

CD2

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Casting A Shadow

On the morning of 11th August 1999, part of south-west England gets to experience the first total solar eclipse over the British mainland for over 70 years. BBC Radio 1 marks the occasion with a live show from Cornwall at which the Pet Shop Boys perform.  The duo have written a new instrumental for performance to be broadcast during the actual eclipse itself. Said instrumental, which goes through a number of tempo changes (and which at its fastest, certainly owes a debt to Giorgio Moroder), appears as the extra track on CD2 of the next single.

The fact that the previous two singles hadn’t really set any heather on fire is perhaps one explanation as to why it took until 3 January 2000 before the release of the next one.

In the interim, the duo’s seventh studio album, Nightlife, had been released on 8 October 1999.  The artwork around the album was a continuation of what had been used on its preview singles, and quite a number of critics took the opportunity to ridicule the new look.  And, if we are being honest, it wasn’t a style which was well received by many fans.

The album was supported by a world tour called Dreamworld that got underway in Miami on 20 October and would continue through to 12 February with a show in Mannheim.  The calling points were America, Canada, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and France. The costumes and wigs were elaborate and were often more commented on in reviews than the actual music. 

Tours are normally very good at giving life to new records, but Nightlife, certainly in comparison to the previous albums, sold in disappointing numbers.  It entered the charts at #7, the first time a PSB album had missed the Top 5.   Within two weeks, it was outside the Top 75 and destined before too long for the bargain bins. 

The January 2000 single was lifted from Nightlife

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk

It’s a fine song, albeit it doesn’t quite live up to its majestic title.  It’s also still part of the current set lists, albeit in an unplugged version with Neil Tennant strumming away on an acoustic guitar.  It actually works really well.

The best-performing of the three singles from Nightlife in that it reached #8, but that was possibly to do with the timing of its release in the first week of a new year when there are less new singles competing for attention and sales.

This time round, the cassette was dropped in favour of  3 x CDs, and a 12″ single. The vinyl had four remixes of the single, offering up more than 33 minutes worth of music.  CD1 had the single, two previously unreleased songs and the video.

CD1

mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Lies
mp3:  Pet Shop Boys – Sail Away

Lies is a club stomper. Chris Lowe is on lead vocal.  Yup, he sings on this one rather than talks his way through it, albeit he’s greatly assisted with the soulful, diva-style backing vocals.   This would not have been out of place on the Club Ibiza type CD compilations that were flooding the market at the turn of the century.  It’s great fun.

Sail Away is a cover of a song written in the 1940s by Noel Coward. It had been included on the 1998 charity album, Twentieth-Century Blues, which had been curated by Neil Tennant and involved modern-day artists, reinterpreting some of Coward’s best know songs, with the profits going to the Red Hot Aids Charitable Trust.

CD2 had three mixes of the single, while CD3 has a live version of ‘You Only Tell Me…’ along with live versions of Always On My Mind and Being Boring.  As such, there’s nothing further to offer from the release.

No more singles were lifted from Nightlife.   The duo remained on tour for much of 2000 and included their first ever Glastonbury performance.  2001 was taken up by  the staging of Closer To Heaven a co-written by the Pet Shop Boys, something they had been working on since 1996.  The show opened in May 2001 and ran until October 2001.  Reviews were, at best, mixed.

The next new PSB recorded material would surface in March 2002.  I’ll hopefully see you next week…..

JC

What follows is likely to be the longest single posting in the series……but that’s as much down to contemporary review being part it.  Thanks in advance for reading.

September 1996, the new album Bilingual is released. There’s a familiarity with a couple of its tracks thanks to them previously being released as singles, but everything else is brand new.  

I think this is the watershed moment in the history of PSB.  Having emerged and enjoyed initial success as a synth-pop duo, they had, with each passing year, sought to expand their horizons and incorporate all sorts of new sounds and influences.  The new album was a quantum leap in that regard.

There had been previous examples of their love for the music of Latin America, but this went to whole new levels in terms of rhythm and language.  It wasn’t univerally welcomed, as can be seen from some lukewarm reviews from bemused critics, while its sales and chart position were both less than previous efforts.  Bilingual was the first PSB album not to go Top 3.

Not only had the album not reached the Top 3, but it very quickly plunged down the charts out of the Top 100.  In time-honoured fashion, the releases of a new single was seen as a way to boost things.  

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Single-Bilingual

The second track on the album was Single, but when it came to issuing it along those line on 11 November 1996, it was called Single-Bilingual.  The reason given was that Everything But The Girl had, just a month previously, released a single called Single, and it was all about avoiding confusion.  Given how long it takes to clear artwork etc. for any release, I’m not convinced this was really the case, and giving such a new title did, of course, work in the name of the latest album.

This one takes the energy and beat of Se a vida é and cranks it up a few notches.   It was one of the highlights of last years’ live show, especially from the way it effortlessly segued into Se a vida é, but it wasn’t well-received at the time of its release, only going at #14 and disappearing altogether after three weeks.  Nor did it do much to alter the fortunes of its parent album.

The usual practice was followed of having  2 x CDs and cassette versions up for sale, but there weren’t quite as many remixes around, possibly as there was a limit on what you could do with Single-Bilingual without completely destroying the song’s very fabric. Instead, the album’s opening track, Discoteca, was given the remix treatments and made available widely on the two CDs.  There was only one completely new song, placed at Track 3 on CD1.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Calm Before The Storm

This is a lovely and understated number, lasting less than three minutes.  It seems it was recorded, almost as live, in the studio and on the face of it seems to be from the perspective of someone who is anticipating a sad or indeed update. I read somewhere that the lyric was written by Neil shortly after Bilingual had been readied for release in the expectancy that it would be something of a flop in comparison to previous albums, but I’m not sure if that’s a truth or urban myth.ly predict about Pet Shop Boys was they were unpredictable, as evidenced by the next single.

The fourth song to be lifted as a single from Bilingual was a really odd one. Released on 17 March 1997,  A Red Letter Day was quite different from the album version, with a lot of the noise and clutter removed, as well as it being substantially remixed.

As with Go West from a few years back, there’s a reliance on the involvement of a choir, but this time it’s the Choral Academy of Moscow and only in the opening few seconds.   It very quickly settles into the sort of tune that had given so much success to PSB over the years, which maybe was a signal that the more experimental nature of recent singles was coming  to an end.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – A Red Letter Day

It sort of worked in that the single went Top 10 but only for one week, while the sales of the parent album weren’t impacted at all.  It was almost as if the new ‘product’ was only of interest to the fanbase and not the wider public.

Again, there were 2 x CDs and a cassette, although a close look at the sticker on CD1 (as illustrated above) reads ‘To complete set – also available REMIX CD -includes over 35 minutes of remixes by Motiv 8, Trouser Enthusiasts and Basement Jaxx.  Plus 12″ red vinyl’

CD2 was the remix CD, while CD1 had two new songs.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Boy Who Couldn’t Keep His Clothes On
mp3: Pet Shop Boys –  Delusions of Grandeur

The former is what most folk would call a PSB classic.  More than six minutes in length, complete with prominent keyboards, house-beat and synthetic horns and strings thrown into the mix.   It’s certainly one that it could be argued was wasted as a b-side…..it even has that cheeky, irrelevant sounding repetitive chorus that sounds tailor-made for radio.  OK, for a single, it would likely have needed edited down, but as we’ve seen from past hits, this wouldn’t have been a problem.

The latter opens up with notes that remind me of ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’ by The Smiths.  But after ten seconds, the synthetic horns kick in……..and it goes to the most unexpected of places.   It’s one of those frantic, almost million-miles-an-hour tunes that are guaranteed to work up an immediate sweat in the clubs, set to a lyric in which Neil Tennant seems to be fantasising that he is becoming the new Pope……

It is bonkers and it is absolutely brilliant.  It also means that CD1 of Red Letter Day is one of my favourite PSB releases of them all.

In June 1997, PSB again do something out of the ordinary.  It’s not an event I can remember, but then again, I don’t always pay attention when it’s not centred around Glasgow.

Here’s a review as written by Anthony Thornton for The Independent newspaper on 8 June:-

Try walking into a record company to sell them the idea of two average-looking blokes on stage wearing shapeless Communist-style clothes, with the baseball- hatted one standing motionless behind an ancient keyboard and the balding one singing in a monotone, and you’ll discover at first hand how efficient their security staff are.

The Pet Shop Boys have somehow avoided forceful ejection from pop heaven for 12 years now. Until 21 June the pop ironists are nestled in the Savoy Theatre, London, playing a series of concerts entitled “Somewhere”. They are the first band to play a residency at a West End theatre, but it’s hardly surprising because they have always been more at home with Coward and Wilde than Hendrix and Clapton and their songs have always sounded like they belong in an unwritten musical.

Ironically (what else could it be?) the theatrical setting sees them at their least theatrical. The atmosphere is far more intimate than previous shows; the absence of huge choreographed antics and massive costume changes probably makes this the nearest thing the Pet Shop Boys will get to an unplugged concert.

Initially they play lots of B-sides, as if a serious setting requires serious work from the audience. Then, just as everyone’s gearing themselves up for a dance as they play “Go West”, they tip straight into the interval. The interval? We wanted to dance. This theatre thing must have gone to the Boys head.

After the interval normal service is resumed. They play “It’s a Sin” mixed up in a disco cocktail with “I Will Survive”. Neil Tennant tells us it’s all right to dance. So we jive in our seats. And we notice Chris Lowe has slipped a bit of drum ‘n’ bass into the mid section. Albeit quietly, Sylvia Mason James belts out the “I will survive” and Neil’s monotone duets with her powerful wail. A mistake he probably won’t make again.

Their forthcoming single, “Somewhere”, a cover of the West Side Story song, is all disco beats, orchestral strings and epic arrangements which manage to sound even bigger than the epic disco of “Go West”.

Despite all this faceless anti-pop star treatment and bright arrangements, Neil is equally capable of singing from his heart: for every meaningless “Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat” there’s the tragedy and Wildean wit of “Whatever fatal points they scored, I have never been ignored”.

This tenderness reaches its peak during the encore, when Neil appears with an unwieldy acoustic guitar. He gently strums his way through a tender version of “Rent”. It works so perfectly, you wonder why they haven’t done it before.

It’s the contradictions: disposable beats and intimate clever lyrics that make the Pet Shop Boys appealing. Their self-conscious anti-rock stance is an antidote to whoever happens to be mistreating an electric guitar elsewhere in the charts. And thankfully, Chris standing behind the same Roland synthesizer pretending to produce all these sounds live is still the funniest running gag in showbiz.

The forthcoming single referenced in the above review was released on 23 June, immediately at the end of the residency.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Somewhere

West Side Story music set to a disco and club beat…….it might have reached #9 in the singles chart, but it doesn’t do much for me.  But it sounds as if the duo had great fun putting it all together.

The usual 2 x CDs and cassette singles were on offer.  Unlike most of the previous times with the CD singles, both would need to be purchased to pick up what woule previously have been refered to as b-sides.

CD1

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The View From Your Balcony

The sort of slow-paced and reflective number of which PSB were increasingly becoming fond of recording….and I don’t mean that as any criticism.  This one has a very straight-forward and unambigious lyric that has clearly been inspired by Neil looking out over London from a high-rise flat, in a location that was once edgy but is part of the increasing gentrification of the city.

CD2

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Disco Potential

There’s a lot of noise on this one.  It’s from 1997.  That was the same year that U2 had a #1 hit with Discotheque, with which they had been accused by some of jumping on the dance bandwagon as a way to try and stay relevant.  I’m wondering if this is Neil and Chris having a bit of gentle fun at the expense of Bono et al?  It’s certainly not one of their most essential b-sides……

The next two years proved to quiet in terms of new material.  It’ll be 1999 before you know it.

JC