PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Thirty-five)

Another single from Hotspot was issued on 24 April 2020.  There was a digital and CD release, along with a 12″ vinyl version.

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – I Don’t Wanna (radio edit)

It’s about 40 seconds shorter than the album version.  Again, like much of the later material from the Pet Shop Boys, the tunes from the Hotspot era, all the way from the advance singles through to the b-side of this, the fourth and final single, were all new to me when I reached the stage of putting the various pieces together for this series.   I Don’t Wanna is one of the rare times I’ve been disappointed, as it’s all just a bit functional and dull.

The CD and 12″ single were dominated by remixes, but there was one new song kept back for use as a b-side:-

mp3: Pet Shop Boys – New Boy

This one caught me by surprise.  After all the twists and turns and changes of direction in recent years, here’s a ballad that wouldn’t have been out of place on the earliest albums or as a b-side to some of the biggest hit singles back in the 80s.  It is classic PSB, and an interview with a journalist in Australia reveals that the song indeed, did have very deep roots:-

“One or two years ago I was listening to the cassette demos and I’ve always liked this song we wrote at the time we wrote ‘Rent.’ It’s called ‘New Boy.’ I was at Smash Hits at the time. It’s about two girls on the phone in some suburban area, they see a new boy in town and are talking about him. It’s got a very strong melody, I’ve always remembered it. Anyway, Chris and I finally finished it off after however many years….”

(with thanks to Wayne Struder‘s hugely invaluable fan site, Commentary, for that particular snippet of info).

I Don’t Wanna remains the last ‘actual’ single that the Pet Shop Boys have released.  There have been a few more editions of Annually that have contained CDs, and I’ll cover them off next week in what will be the very final part of the series.

JC