The 36th and final instalment of what has turned out to be the most epic series ever to have appeared on the blog. It’s been a bit of a challenge as there were a lot of tunes I didn’t know beforehand when I was putting the pieces together, but I had a feeling from the outset that it was all going to work out fine given the real quality, not just of the singles, but the b-sides and additional tracks recorded by the Pet Shop Boys over what is now a 40-year career (and counting!).
Hotspot remains the most recent studio album, dating back to January 2020. The intervening years have seen the eventual staging of a triumphant world-tour, with the sets dominated by all the big hits, while earlier this year, on 16 June, there was the release of SMASH, the complete collection of Pet Shop Boys singles in chronological order.
I genuinely had no idea that release was in the pipeline when I started this series all the way back on 22 January. (And, for what it’s worth, I’m actually writing this on 30 May 2023, as I was determined to write everything up in advance of the release of SMASH, so that I didn’t find myself relying on the contents of an illustrated booklet in which all the songs are discussed).
Two CDs to wrap things up, both courtesy of inclusion with different editions of Annually – CDs that I actually have managed to order through the PSB website in advance of their actual release.
The Pet Shop Boys Annually 2021
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Cricket Wife
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls (Lockdown Version)
The former is a very unusual song. It is ten minutes in length and has a really ambitious chamber/orchestral-pop feel about it. It is totally unlike anything else Neil and Chris have ever written or recorded. It really threw me when it arrived in the post shortly after its release on 16 April 2021.
The PSB website provides a bit more background detail:-
Annually 2021 will be accompanied by a two-track CD single featuring a dramatic new song, almost ten minutes long, entitled “Cricket wife”….. it uses orchestral sounds and was written as a classical-style instrumental piece by Chris over which Neil sang lyrics taken from a poem he had written. Both Chris and Neil recorded their parts at their homes, and Pete Gleadall mixed the final track.
I’ve really grown to like it as a stand-alone piece of music, but it did take a good number of listens.
It is perhaps, because it was such a challenging listen, that the duo used lockdown to revisit the breakthrough hit as the other track issued with Annually 2021. I’ve already included the version in one of the monthly one-hour mixes which have been known to pop up on the blog, and I’ve a feeling it’ll go down well with most of you.
The Pet Shop Boys Annually 2023
Annually 2022 didn’t have a CD. But things got back to normal in 2023 with the inclusion of Lost, an EP containing demos of songs written in 2015, for potential inclusion on the album Super, but ultimately not taken forward and developed.
There’s a section in Annually 2023 dedicated to the CD in which Neil explains “It’s not that we didn’t like them, it was that they didn’t fit into the album. The idea for this EP was spurred by the realisation that the songs may not otherwise be heard, and they all sit together quite well, production-wise – they’re all supersonic”
The four tracks were given a digital release on the same day as the now long sold-out Annually 2023:-
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – The Lost Room
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – I Will Fall
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Skeletons In The Closet
mp3: Pet Shop Boys – Kaputnik
At the same time as Annually 2023 was published, a new home demo recording was made available via a YouTube video. I think it’s fair to say that it is a poignant way to wrap things up:-
And with that, it is time to say farewell to this series. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening and reading as much as I’ve enjoyed researching and writing.
Feel free to drop in again next Sunday for the start of what will be a new series on this familiar theme.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
I cannot believe it has been nearly 40 years since I jumped on the PSB’s bandwagon and what a ride it has been. I thought I had most of their releases but there is just so much more that I was not aware of.
I want to thank you for your time and effort in compiling this collection. Truly amazing.
Absolutely Fabulous series!
I really enjoyed the series So much I didn’t know. So many songs I’d never heard of before. Thanks.
Flimflamfan
Massive undertaking and thank so much for taking it on. Although I feel a bit sorry for anyone who doesn’t like the Pet shop boys ! ( although not so much as I loyally followed the Fall one ). .it’s been fabulous and I really struggle to think of a band that has kept the quality of b sides so high for so long
I had a lot of the early ones in compilations but all the later tracks especially the digital only and annually ones were completely new to me , so thanks again , just glorious
Friend of Rachel Worth
Fantastic series! I kind of lost track after Electric but clearly so much great stuff still coming out of the boys. Thanks for the relentlessness in putting this series together!
Well done mate. I liked the Pet Shop Boys in the early days but they dropped off my radar completely by the mid-90s so there’s a lot I’ve learned over the past however many Sundays.
Massive round of applause for seeing this through. The 80s and early 90s PSB were a huge part of my musical life, and I stayed with them through to Bilingual but drifted after that. The second half of this series has been a genuine education.
Thank so much for this – a great series and I hadn’t realised there was so much PSB I’d missed. Great stuff!!!
Thank you for a series I had no idea I would enjoy as much as I did! x
Never the greatest PSB fan but appreciated their detailed approach to what they did which you have matched brilliantly in this fascinating series. Even for the casual observer, it was a really great read every week.
As seems to be the case for others, I was a big fan in the early days but quickly lost interest, and so reading about their 21st century output has been quite an education. Congratulations on this excellent series in your superb blog.