PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Thirty-three)

The bells to ring in the new year had barely stopped ringing when the Pet Shop Boys issued a third advance single from the forthcoming new album.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Monkey Business (radio edit)

2 January 2020 was the digital release date, just three weeks ahead of Hotspot, the fourteenth studio album.  A CD version would be in the shops in early February, slightly after the album was put on sale.

Monkey Business was another well-received track.  The duo have been more than happy to describe it as a party song, one which pays a bit of lip service to a number of upbeat, almost funky tunes that had been riding high at the top of the charts over much of the past couple of years.

Its backstory is now well known, thanks to Neil telling it on each occasion it has been played live over the years. The duo were on tour and had reached Austin, Texas when they chanced upon a larger-than-life man at their hotel who explained that he was in town “On monkey business—just playing around”, which Neil then used as inspiration to put him in a song as a shameless hipster who lived purely for the high-life. 

Given all that, the choice of B-side for this one was interesting:-

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – At Rock Bottom

Everyone talks about
their loss and the legacy
Sharing condolences
and offering sympathy
But at rock bottom
what got him?

It’s all about
It’s all about
It’s all about
It’s all about drugs

Almost as if to say to anyone who wants to live a life of Monkey Business that there’s very likely a price to pay.

Again, it’s a more than decent b-side.  As the vast majority of them have been over the years.

JC