October 2023 – Page 2 – THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN

NEW YOUTH BIBLE

A guest posting by flimflamfan

R-3022934-1312165480

Edinburgh School for the Deaf – New Youth Bible

Re-issue : Absolutely Kosher Records 25th Anniversary

I’ve written much in these pages about the emotional response to music, my own included – sometimes bordering on the spiritual (all the while jabbing at any thought of religion with a long-armed stick). Phrases to describe such experiences can include ‘the hairs on the back of my neck stood up’. Remember that phrase.

I’ve listened to ‘a lot’ of records, saw more than my fair share of live bands, and some – I’ve no idea why – affect me more than others. I’ll not list bands / songs – it could prove to be an unhelpful construct although I might, just might, make one or two references here and there.

Imagine the Star Wars intro text title screen… It was a long time ago…

I was asked to assist with a ‘battle of the bands’. I was incredibly proud to be asked to do so by Sandy, the man behind the event, but was ambushed by Imposter Syndrome. Sandy had arranged to host one of Alan McGee nights, in Perth, in which a lucky recipient would be ‘signed’ to McGee’s new label – who was I to judge? Although I do think I’d look quite dashing adorned in powdered wig, gown and wielding a gavel. Sorry, I digressed, with what was an unrealistic TV adaptation of a UK court scene.

Off I popped to Perth full of excitement and trepidation on an overnight stay with my bag packed full of social anxieties.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not the most gregarious person you’ll ever meet – certainly not initially. If I feel comfortable, or have had a wee drink, I can be quite the chatterbox. I say, quite the chatterbox. I’ve never liked to be seen – even as a kid. It’s a peculiar thing to say – even after all these years – but it makes me feel uncomfortable. Every interaction is stage-managed internally by skilled ‘imaginary’ puppeteers pulling every string to make my interactions seem natural.

I arrived in Perth. I arrived at the venue.

Neither of these things seem like big deals, yet both are to me, especially entering the venue on my own. This is something I have done so rarely it could be referred to as a rare occasion.

Sandy was there to greet me, bands were sound checking – it was noisy but with few folk milling around. I was introduced to Mr McGee and then Sandy began to outline how the night would pan out. It seemed quite straight forward and something that could be enhanced by a dark rum and green ginger. I was right. That dark rum and green ginger, they should bottle that. Oh, hang on…

I’m ashamed to say that I don’t recall all of the bands that played. I could go and look at information from that time, but that doesn’t seem terribly honest. Suffice to say, only two bands stood out. The soon to be ‘band in first place’ and ‘band in second place’. The band in first place were damn good. Young. Fiery. Full of fight and ambition. I liked them. Mr McGee announced them as winners. In a brief comment to me later, he uttered ‘it would have been too obvious for me to pick the other band’. The words “too obvious” are a direct quote and remain etched forever in my reminiscences of that night.

The other band? The band in second place? That band provided me with one of the most spiritual musical experiences I have ever encountered. Known for a short time as Deserters Deserve Death, but soon to be known as Edinburgh School for the Deaf, that band destroyed every social anxiety I had. They pummelled any and every doubt. They raised me to a point of spiritual ecstasy. They made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up – a physical response to music that I’ll never forget. They made me dance (swaying really) to music I was unfamiliar with – it was unadulterated joy. Anxieties? What anxieties?

As much as I was pleased for the band that came in first, and I was pleased for them, Edinburgh School for the Deaf was robbed.

How a band can create and sustain such chaos, yet exude a calm presence, still confounds me. It was akin to watching three maniacs tethered to their jailer. Was there a single space in that bar that Kieran had not jumped on, or jumped from, all the while playing note perfect? Each band member seemingly in their own space, unaware of the other band members at all, then coming together triumphantly as a sonic force that made you want to cry. I did cry. It was a powerful, moving performance, and they are by definition of this event the second-best band in the world (as far as I am concerned).

Throughout the gig I was plagued by a sense of familiarity but couldn’t place it? It transpired that Edinburgh School for the Death rose from the ashes of another much-loved band, St Jude’s Infirmary.

Soon after the gig the band ‘signed’ to Glasgow label, Bubblegum Records with which they released the single Orpheus Descending / Orpheus Ascending and their sole LP New Youth Bible (on CD) back in 2011.

I am delighted to say that thanks to Absolutely Kosher Records (California) enjoying a 25th anniversary, it has decided to reissue the LP on limited edition silver vinyl (20th October).

The LP captures the mood of the band perfectly. Of Scottish Blood and Sympathies overwhelms the senses with it’s glorious wall of noise that carries a fragile vocal to where we know not.

mp3: Edinburgh School for the Deaf – Of Scottish Blood and Sympathies

Love is Terminal is the epitome of a post-punk classic that brandishes its pop sensibilities with a sharpened knife. I’ll allow you, dear reader, to go through each song and come to your own conclusions. Suffice to say, my limited-edition silver vinyl is secured. I’ll be thrilled to teeny tiny bits when it arrives.

This is an LP for those that enjoy: The Velvet Underground, The Fall, Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain et al. It is by far one of the most important LPs in my collection. It was a once lost but now re-found Scottish classic, thanks to Absolutely Kosher Records.

The LP can be purchased via bandcamp. It’s also currently on pre-order from the likes of Assai Records, Juno Records, Norman Records and Rough Trade, with no doubt many other similar stores likely to add it to their impending arrivals over the coming days.

flimflamfan

JC adds

The write-up today is not mere hyperbole. It’s a record that I wasn’t entirely sure of back in the day, but it has very much grown on me over the years, and I have long come to the conclusion that I wasn’t quite ready, back in 2011, for its sonic magnificence. Surely we’ve all got much-loved albums that took a long time to worm their way into our affections???

Smarter folk like Mike over at Manic Pop Thrills got it right away, with a tremendous review back in 2011 (click here), and in one short phrase he captured it perfectly.

“thrilling proof that rock music can be exciting and beautiful at the same time”.

Jacques the Kipper also raved about it at the time, and included one of the tracks from the album on a homemade ‘best of 2011 compilation CD’ he gifted to me.

Like fff, I’ve got my order in for the vinyl.

Helen Love

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN SINGLES : #034

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#034– Helen Love – ”Girl About Town (Damaged Goods ’96)

Dear friends,

to Swansea, Wales we go today, although – let’s face facts – the Welsh are a strange bunch, aren’t they? I mean, the language is pathetic, and their humor, well, it takes getting used to, let’s put it this way. But once you have achieved this, you’re up for a treat. Quite some time ago I bought myself a double album ‘Dial M For Merthyr’, which was – and still is, I suppose – a compilation of Welsh Indie bands from 1997 on Fierce Panda. The music is okay by and large, as it so often is with compilations: killers and fillers, you know what I mean. But it still blows me away each time I look at / listen to it, because:

a) the cover reads: “record hir cymraeg gorau yn byd erioed… mwy na thebyg”, which might or might not translate as “the Scots are going to come and turn our fishing village into a top secret radar establishment!”

b) all over the front cover is Johnny Owen, Welsh bantamweight boxer, in all his glory, jogging near Merthyr bridge. Now, if this weren’t a Welsh compilation, but a Jamaican one, you probably would have seen Usain Bolt on the cover and bloody Beckham if it were UK bands. Why? Because sex sells, we all know this! Now, Johnny Owen, well – and I am trying to remain polite here, I really do – is nothing like that! But I’m sure his mother loved him anyway:

Johnny-Owen-boxer

And also: c) track one, side one is by Teen Anthems and it’s called “Welsh Bands Suck”. And if this weren’t funny enough, the lyrics are: ”oh no, it can’t be true/everybody’s saying Welsh bands are cool/oh no, that can’t be right/ apart from Helen Love they’re a load of shite/oh no, they sing in Welsh: chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck chrck” …. which is just priceless, I always thought!!!

Yes, I might have digressed a little bit, but to have singled out Helen Love as being not shite really offers a useful segue: Helen Love have been around forever, haven’t they (30 years definitely is ‘forever’ in my books)? From scratch on they provided us with a brilliant mix of lo-fi punk rock and bubblegum pop, which never got boring. They always only had one God, and that was Joey Ramone. This ended up in Helen working with Joey and vice versa. Not on this song though, which, regardless of that, is their finest moment in my humble opinion:

R-2728811-1298396831

R-2728811-1298396964

mp3: Helen Love – Girl About Town

When they go “she had her picture in Rolling Stone/she was third from the left behind Joey Ramone/you couldn’t see her face/but I’m sure she looked great anyway”, I nearly wet myself each and every time I hear it.

Years ago I read something somewhere, and I don’t feel ashamed to steal it for using it here, because it pretty much sums up everything you need to know about Helen Love: “Helen Love: sticky as a chewing-gum on the sole of a Converse!”.

Whoever thought of this, he – or she – couldn’t have been more right!

One more thought to leave you with. Some applause should be given to Mr Paul Weller for listening to this song with what must have been a smile on his face and taking the decision not to ask for a co-writing credit. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I should ask that you give a listen to Boy About Town as recorded by The Jam for the 1980 album, Sound Affects.

Enjoy,

Dirk

Bob Dylan, Bryan Ferry

ABOUT THE WEATHER

rain

48 hours ago, some of the most torrential rain I can ever recall fell over much of Scotland in a very short space of time. What made this feel very unusual was that just a couple of hundred miles to the south, much of England was basking in unseasonably warm and sunny weather for what is supposed to be the autumnal month of October.

Many football matches were, unsurprisingly called off due to waterlogged pitches. My team, Raith Rovers, play on an artificial surface which meant the game was never in doubt, which meant I had to make the 70-mile journey from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy on a day when the authorities had issued a ‘don’t travel unless you have to warning’.

Oh, and I was going by train – I don’t drive…I never have although I keep threatening to take lessons. And as you can see from the above picture, quite a number of the train lines were under a lot of water, especially those close to rivers and canals.

What would normally be a two-hour journey at most involving two changes of trains, ended up taking more than four hours, but I’m incredibly grateful to the staff who worked so hard and tirelessly in such miserable conditions to ensure there was at least some service on the least-affected lines. The effort was worth it as I was treated to a decent game of football.

I couldn’t help but quietly sing a particular song to myself as I watched the weather worsen from the comfort and safety of the railway carriage.

mp3: Bryan Ferry – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

I’d have barely been ten years old when I first heard this. It was, thinking back on it, probably my introduction to the crooning voice of Bryan Ferry. It’s a song that has so much going on throughout – wonky keyboards, crazy strings and soulful backing vocals are just the tip of the iceberg. I had no idea what the song’s bonkers lyrics were actually about, I just loved how infectiously catchy it all was and looking back, it was one of those songs that subconsciously created my love for music that was maybe just a bit out of the norm.

I can tell you when and where found out that it was a cover version. It would have been in 5th year at school and in our common room where we would idle away the time in between lessons. One of our esteemed and elite group (not many folk at my school stayed on beyond the earliest point you could leave) had discovered Bob Dylan and brought in a compilation tape that he insisted we listened to. It included this:-

mp3: Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

It was only then did I realise just how radical the cover version had been. To take a such a folksy ballad and turn it into something so unworldly was bordering on the point of genius. I still can’t get my head around that the original take was such a slow number with a low-key production.

Oh, and I also can’t get to grips with Dylan being just 21 years old when he wrote and recorded it. It’s a fantastic piece of poetry and prose, but surely that’s the voice of someone well into their advancing years?

JC

Wedding Present

THE WEDDING PRESENT SINGLES (Part One)

R-623651-1156312316

So…..the very large tasks of sharing the singles by The Fall and Pet Shop Boys have been completed. I thought about now turning my attention to a singer or band whose output has been slightly less in number, but as you can see I’ve changed my mind.

The opening sentence of The Wedding Present discography page at wiki states:-

The Wedding Present’s discography consists of 54 singles, 17 extended plays, 9 studio albums, 24 live albums and 21 compilation albums.

It’s gonna be a long ride….and I hope you’re all up for it.

There’ll be a lot of things over the next year-and-a-bit lifted from previous witterings on the blog as so many of the 45s have been written about already.

It’s time to head back to 24 May 1985, and the very first single, and b-side, released on 7″ via the newly formed Reception Records.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy
mp3: The Wedding Present – The Moment Before (Everything’s Spoiled Again)

500 copies were pressed up. Later in the year, it was re-released on City Slang Records, again in fairly limited numbers and with different artwork. Both songs were later included on the compilation album Tommy, released in 1988.

In 2019, Optic Nerve Records brought out a fresh pressing of the debut single, on white vinyl, and using the same sleeve as had been used on the Reception Records release.

As calling cards go, it’s not too shabby, although the lo-fi nature of the production kind of gives away that things were basic in the studio and money was tight.

The Wedding Present line-up back then was David Gedge (vocals, guitar), Peter Solowka (guitar), Keith Gregory (bass) and Shaun Charman (drums). However, it’s not Shaun who is drumming on the a-side of the debut. He would later explain:-

“The reason why…..is because I couldn’t play the drums well enough, and thought it would be a better single if I got somebody else in – I still think so. I asked Julian Sowa, the drummer of the band I played the bass in, to play for me.

“The b-side has a slow bit in the middle. The reason I could play that song is because it had the slow bit. I ran out of puff, had a bit of a rest and then launched into the second half of it. That’s how the first single came about.”

JC

Whiteout

SATURDAY’S SCOTTISH SONG : #376: WHITEOUT

Whiteout formed in Greenock in 1991, briefly gaining a bit of fame in the Britpop era, although their best chart position for any single was #72, while the debut album stalled at #71.

As the promo photo above indicates, they were on Silvertone Records, the label that had brought Stone Roses to the attention of the masses. Whiteout had a reputation as a decent live act, thanks in part to touring in front of large audiences as support for The Charlatans and Pulp, and they were also on the road alongside Oasis when that band was just getting things going.

I’ve only one of their songs, and it comes courtesy of its inclusion on a compilation CD which celebrated songs recorded at Park Lane Studios in Glasgow:-

mp3: Whiteout – Jackie’s Racing (alternate mix)

The single version of the song was the one that took them to #72 in the charts back in February 1995.

JC

Echo & The Bunnymen

SHOULD’VE BEEN A SINGLE ?(4)

echothebunnymen

I kind of forgot about this series…….

A reminder that it’s designed to suggest that a singer/band and/or record label missed a trick by not issuing a particular track as a single.

Heaven Up Here, the second album from Echo & The Bunnymen, was released on 30 May 1981. It wasn’t preceded by the release of any single, and indeed only one of its tracks, A Promise was released on the 45rpm format, and not until 10 July, some six weeks later.

I don’t know why this was the case given the quality of the material on the album. Maybe everyone had a listen and felt that while the songs were first-rate, none of them really stood out as having the potential to make an impact on daytime or commercial radio. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the band’s previous singles had barely dented the charts, and indeed A Promise stalled at #49, although I’ve long advocated that if it had been released a few weeks in advance of the album instead of six weeks after, then it would have cracked the Top 20.

Heaven Up Here had entered the album charts at #10 on the week of its release. It continued to sell in decent enough number for the next month or so before just about slipping out of the Top 75. The release of A Promise did give it the expected and hoped-for boost in mid-summer, and it climbed back into the Top 40. But after that, it was a gradual drift back down the charts, disappearing by the end of August. Surely a second single would have boosted sales, especially if it had been the song from which the album took its name:-

mp3: Echo & The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here

Go on…..admit it, it makes you want to throw back the years and shake all your limbs in a totally uncontrollable fashion.

JC

101'ers

ONE SONG ON THE HARD DRIVE (3)

R-907738-1631970224-1439

Last time out in the occasional series, I featured the one song I have by Nightmares In Wax, courtesy of it being on the compilation CD Indie Scene 80.

Today, I’m leaning on another CD from that particular family:-

mp3: The 101’ers – Keys To Your Heart

Originally released on Chiswick Records in 1976, it was included on Indie Scene 77.

I probably don’t need to tell the backstory, but maybe there’s some who don’t know. The 101’ers were a London pub band, formed in 1974, whose main form of music was rockabilly covers alongside a few originals. Keys To Your Heart was their debut single, but by the time it was released, they had spilt as their lead singer and main songwriter had left to join another band. His name was Joe Strummer and his new band were called The Clash.

JC

Electronic

THE 7″ LUCKY DIP (7)

R-161715-1348177745-2185

Yup. It’s come out in the 7″ lucky dip. I wrote about it in October 2013. I’m more than happy to cut’n’paste as I can’t really better what was said at the time.

When Barney met Johnny, and they team up with Neil. Proof that supergroups sometimes do work:-

mp3 : Electronic – Getting Away With It

The debut single. Hugely anticipated on release, it didn’t disappoint. Reviews were almost universally and deservedly positive:-

NME : “The most complete pop record of the week, by an infinite margin… A lovely airy melody drifts in and out of the song; gently weighted with obtuse, lovelorn one-liners… The record somehow manages to be much more than the sum of its parts and stubbornly refuses to give up its element of mystery”

Sounds : “It’s nothing shocking, nothing that surprising, it’s just that every time you think you’re tired of it you can’t help flipping back the stylus to catch that chorus”.

Over the next decade or so, Electronic would write and record some brilliant dance music with some of the best guitar work that Johnny Marr ever laid down. But they never again got as close again to the sound of Italian House that was all the rage for a while at the end of the 80s.

The orchestral arrangement came courtesy of Anne Dudley of The Art Of Noise.

The b-side is total house music and was for a number of years uses as the theme tune for a football highlights programme here in Scotland:-

mp3 : Electronic – Lucky Bag (edit)

A #12 hit in the UK.

JC

Robert Forster

RECOMMENDED LISTENING FROM 2023 (Volume 3)

R-26001805-1675610980-6245

The third of an occasional feature in which I’ll draw your attention to some albums that have been purchased in 2023 and which I reckon are worth highlighting. It’s an LP that came out on Tapete Records back in February.

The Candle and The Flame is the eighth solo album to be released by Robert Forster, going back all the way to Danger In The Past in 1990. There have also, of course, been three Go-Betweens album in that period, with the last being Oceans Apart (2005) which came out a year before Grant McLennan passed away, at the age of 48, after a heart attack.

It’s always been a tough one comparing Robert’s solo releases to those with his former band. He’s never been one to completely let go of what came before, with his always entertaining live shows being a mix of the solo and band material. As much as I’ve always enjoyed the solo records, none of them have really managed to have the same longevity as most Go-Betweens records in that I don’t often find myself going back for very regular listens once the vinyl or CDs were put on the shelf.

Things are going to change with this one, thanks to it easily being his best solo effort this far. It’s an album that was largely conceived and recorded against the challenging background of Karin Bäumler, his wife and musical partner for more than 30 years, being diagnosed, during the COVID lockdown period, with ovarian cancer that was inoperable and could only be treated with chemotherapy.

Robert, who makes great use of social media to keep in touch and update his fans, broke the news in October 2022. It’s best to actually reproduce what he said:-

“Greetings from Brisbane

Dear friends, pull up chairs, this is a difficult and lengthy post. It is tough news that I wish to share with you and not for you to pick up second hand on the internet over the next months.

In early July last year (2021), Karin Bäumler, my wife and musical companion for thirty-two years, was diagnosed with a confronting case of ovarian cancer. It was a time of shock and grief, and that same month, she embarked on a regime of chemotherapy treatment.

Ever since we met, Karin and I have sung and played music together in our home, and in these dark days we turned to music once again. I had a batch of new songs I’d written over the last years, and we started playing them together. Our son Louis often dropped in for a meal and a chat and soon he began joining us on guitar. One night, when sitting cross-legged on the couch, after we had played a song, Karin looked up from her xylophone and said, “When we play music, is the only time I forget I have cancer.” That was a big moment.

In the meantime some of our very kind Brisbane friends had formed a cooking roster, leaving meals at our front door to support us through this time. One of them was Adele Pickvance, former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player. On one of her meal delivery trips, I asked her to bring her bass and an amp along. She pulled up a chair in our lounge room and fell right in on the new songs.

In October, Karin was scheduled for surgery. We booked a studio, and on September 27th, the four of us sitting in a circle, recorded 10 songs live in 7 hours. Whatever would happen in the future, we would always have the tape.

Over the next months, when Karin was strong enough and Covid numbers were low, we booked odd days in the studio. Sometimes our daughter, Loretta, would come along and join us and we brought in friends to help us, too. Karin was driving the album and listening to what we’d done on each session, gave us weeks of enjoyment and a place we could retreat to, away from hospital visits and scans and blood tests. In early March, with her chemotherapy course just finished, we did our last day in the studio.

The songs we recorded formed an album that will come out early next year, and this Wednesday, the 19th, we will release a single. But we wanted you to know the story of the creation of the record first. Why it exists. Why these musicians are playing on it. Why there isn’t layers of production, instead a live, catch a moment feel to the sound. Two of the songs on the album are from that September 27 recording. We didn’t know we’d started an album but we had, in the shadow of Karin’s hospital visits.

With a challenging year behind her, Karin is feeling strong and positive now and she can’t wait for our music to go out of our house and into the world. It may seem strange making an album in these circumstances and looking back, we really don’t know how we did it, but we do know that it helped us just so much as a family. It was done in drops and gave us this other reality we could live in. Something that music is great in giving.

In the slow process of the album’s recording, we didn’t inform a wide range of family and friends of what we were doing, and we ask for their understanding in the delivery of this news.

The album is called The Candle And The Flame. We hope you will enjoy it!

Fondest Regards from Karin and myself,

Robert”

This is the video which dropped into our inboxes a short time later:-

Not too much in the way of words, but by god, it delivered a musical and emotional punch. Robert would later reveal that the bones of the song had actually been written prior to Karin’s diagnosis, but it emerged fully from those home sessions in Brisbane.

She’s A Fighter would be the track chosen to open the new album. It’s totally different, musically, from any of the other eight songs, but what they all have in common is that they are a celebration of the good and happy things in life, all of which makes for an album that was, without any question, the most uplifting and rewarding listen of 2023.

One of the standout tracks, Tender Years, is a wonderful love song, an autobiographical tale of domestic bliss with a video that matches it perfectly,:-

Surprisingly for an album that was made in such challenging circumstances, there are many moments of humour across the record, particularly in the self-deprecating I Don’t Do Drugs I Do Time, while album closer When I Was A Young Man sees Robert look back on his own life and the paths that led him to become a musician. It’s yet another song of celebration, but its not made with any sort of boastfulness, and the lyrics and tune clearly pay homage to those heroes of Robert who helped him on the journey.

Robert has been out on the road with the album. I was lucky enough to see him twice – the first being in Hebden Bridge when he was accompanied on stage by his son Louis, while the second was when he played solo as the headline and closing act of the 2023 edition of Glas-Goes Pop. The latter was probably my favourite gig of the past year, perfectly paced with the usual blend of solo and band material, but taken to new levels thanks to Robert’s chat in-between the songs being just as entertaining. This song was a particular highlight:-

mp3: Robert Forster – There’s A Reason To Live

The Candle and The Flame is a tremendous record. If you don’t have a copy, please do something about it. At the very least, have one of your loved ones make sure that Santa Claus knows you’re interested……

JC

Various

THIS MONTH’S MONTHLY MIX IS A GUEST OFFERING

a2436183530_2

I’ve been very lucky to get to know Jan Burnett of Spare Snare in recent years, after what was an initial chance encounter. He’s one of the nicest persons you’ll ever encounter and he’s probably the most knowledgable person involved in the music scene in Scotland, which is why I was delighted when he agreed to come up with a mix for this monthly series.

Jan’s tastes are very eclectic, but his real love is for pop music with hints of electronica, as can partly be evidenced by this offering. It’s a rather wonderful listen, with some ridiculously good switches between songs

mp3 : Jan The Man’s Hour Long Mix Tape

The Kane Gang – Gun Law
Simple Minds – The American (demo version)
The Evolution Control Committee – Rebel Without A Pause (Whipped Cream Mix)
Kylie Minogue – The One
Robyn – Dancing On My Own
Gorillaz – On Melancholy Hill (Feed Me Remix)
The Afghan Whigs – Be Sweet
Eno • Hyde – Who Rings The Bell
Depeche Mode – Useless (The Kruder + Dorfmeister Session)
Sugababes – Freak Like Me (We Don’t Give A Damn Mix)
Junior Marvin – Police & Thieves
(interlude : Little April Shower)
U2 – In A Little While
Carmel – Take It For Granted
The Lilac Time – If The Stars Shine Tonight

JC

Pet Shop Boys

PET SHOP BOYS SINGLES (Part Thirty-six)

24a1787916db883211847c900bdf8023

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.

a670fa83c8b0a0633fa0c5f09a8e7b82

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.