Back in 2010, Record Store Day was still an idea worth getting behind. Pet Shop Boys announced that they would be participating on 17 April 2010, with the release of a 7″ single, limited to 1,000 copies.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Love Life
It wasn’t an entirely new song. It had been written back in the early 2000s and given to nu-disco outfit Alcazar, who subsequently enjoyed a Top 10 hit with it in their native Sweden. PSB resurrected the song for RSD 2010.
The b-side of the single was of a studio version of a song that had only previously been heard when recorded for the John Peel Show session back in 2002.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – A Powerful Friend
The introduction to A-side starts off like a Pet Shop Boy song, the verse sounds like a Pet Shop Boys song, while the chorus couldn’t be anything else.
The B-side on the other hand……..I just don’t get it. Does nothing for me. I’ll leave it at that.
The important thing is that the recording and release of the single had the purpose of assisting small, independent record shops, and whatever copies participating stores would have received would have sold out very quickly on the day, hopefully from PSB fans perhaps making their first visit to such stores in decades.
Here’s the thing.
I’ve listened to the version of A Powerful Friend that was recorded for the Peel Session and I love it. In places, it’s unmistakably PSB at their synth-pop best, albeit the track is faster and more furious than most of their tunes, while it also incorporates harder elements within the music, almost as if they want to acknowledge the sort of material that is more normally to be heard on the Peel Show. I’m quite surprised that Neil and Chris didn’t seek agreement with BBC Enterprises to make it the actual b-side.
The next major thing to happen was a triumphant appearance at Glastonbury on Saturday 26 June when they headlined The Other Stage, and according to many accounts, delivered the best performance across the entire three days of the festival.
A brand-new single was issued on 24 October 2010. It sounds as if they were trying to create their own version of the sort of tunes that were massive in the clubs, thanks to new(ish) kids on the block such as Calvin Harris or David Guetta, both of whom owed a debt to PSB. Sadly, it isn’t one of their best efforts.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Together
It was initially just a digital release that was followed up by physical content on 29 November. In the interim, it had appeared as the one wholly new song on Ultimate, another ‘greatest hits’ album, containing 19 singles all told. Ultimate was also made available in an expanded form with a bonus DVD containing including 27 performances at the BBC from the past 25 years, most of them filmed for Top Of The Pops, as well as their Glastonbury 2010 show.
The physical release of Together came in a CD single and a CD maxi single. The former had a remix of West End Girls as the additional track, while the latter contained two cover versions.
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Glad All Over
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – I Cried For Us
Yup. One of these IS the song made famous by the Dave Clark Five in the 60s. The connection here is that it’s a song often sung at matches by fans of Blackpool FC, the hometown club of Chris Lowe. It might well qualify as the worst cover version they’ve ever released.
The other song was written, back in 1982, by Kate McGarrigle who enjoyed a long and successful musical career alongside her sister Anna, particularly in their native Canada. Kate, whose name had become increasingly more after her son Rufus Wainwright shot to worldwide fame, had died at the age of 63 in January 2010, and Neil had performed I Cried For Us at a memorial concert in London in June 2010. Shortly afterwards, a studio version of his interpretation of the song was recorded.
As mentioned last time around, the days of PSB singles going high into the UK charts were now at an end. Together peaked at #58.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Deep into unknown PSB territory for me here. That cover of Glad All Over- eek!