It was while I was rebuilding the list of Imaginary Compilation Album that it hit me nobody had attempted to come up with one for the Pet Shop Boys.
In many ways, this is totally understandable, as it borders on a genuinely impossible task. There’s a wiki page which offers what it describes as ‘a comprehensive list of songs….of officially released songs that have been performed by the band….and consists of mostly studio and BBC recordings; remixes and live recordings are not listed, unless the song has only been released in one of the two formats.’
The list runs to almost 350 songs. Well, there have been fifteen studio albums along with more than seventy singles…..
Thinking about it further, ‘borders on a genuinely impossible task’ is an understatement. I reckon you could ask 14,300 PSB fans for a Top 10, and you’d get 14,300 different lists. Oh, the reason for homing in on 14,300 is simply down it being the capacity of the OVO Hydro in Glasgow where myself and Rachel last saw them play live back in May 2022, and although it was, in effect, a ‘greatest hits’ show (26 songs all in), we were struck by how many different people were saying on the way out that they wished Neil and Chris had played something that hadn’t aired that night.
I’m not taking on the task of a full-blown ICA. Instead, here’s one based on tracks that weren’t played at the Hydro….call it an ICA of the lesser-known tracks. I reckon it still makes for a more than decent listen.
SIDE A
1. I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing
The original version can be found on Very, the duo’s fifth studio album, released in September 1993. A few months later, in November 1993, a remixed version was issued as a single. Neil and Chris chose to be quite radical in that a three-minute incredibly immediate pop song was remixed by Beatmasters, with an additional two minutes, while the house music style piano opening being replaced by something rather grand, orchestral and epic. As I’ve mentioned before, while I initially wasn’t all that fussed about the remix, it has grown on me over the years and looking back with the benefit of hindsight, it was the right sort of big and bouncy remix needed to complement the huge success of the previous single, Go West. But I still feel it goes on for maybe 30-45 seconds too long, and so it’s the album version which opens the ICA.
2. Paninaro
The b-side of Suburbia, the duo’s fourth single which dates from 1986 has long been one of the most loved among the fan base, and I suspect that has much to do with the majority of the vocal, albeit more spoken than sung, being provided by Chris Lowe. There’s a spoken sample at the two-and-a-half minute mark:-
I don’t like country-and-western. I don’t like rock music. I don’t like, I don’t like rockabilly or rock ’n’ roll particularly. Don’t like much really, do I? But what I do like I love passionately.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the enigmatic Chris Lowe in his own words. He hasn’t really changed in almost 40 years.
3. Minimal
From Fundamental, the ninth studio album, which was released in 2006, and later issued as a single, becoming PSB’s thirty-seventh Top 20 hit in the UK. Alex Petrides, in his review for The Guardian, described Minimal as sounding pleasingly like Kraftwerk mounting a defence of the Turner prize. A bit mind of Pseud’s Corner perhaps, but I know exactly what he’s getting at.
4. Your Funny Uncle
PSB have always been famed and loved for their more tender numbers, with, arguably, Being Boring being the best of them. But it’s long been the song with which they have closed their shows, and so doesn’t qualify for inclusion on the ICA. Instead, I’m including one from 1989, a b-side on what was a limited 7″ edition of It’s Alright. It’s based on a true story, with the lyric composed by Neil after he had attended the funeral of a friend who had died from AIDS. Here’s what he had to say about the song:-
“All the details are true: the cars in slow formation, and so on. He did have an uncle, who had been in the army all of his life and suddenly found himself at the funeral of his evidently gay nephew who’d died of Aids. I think it must have been quite a difficult situation for him, but he was really nice and dignified and spoke to all of his nephew’s friends. I had to give a reading, and the bit I read was from the book of Revelations…at the end it says there’s somewhere where there’s no pain or fear, and I found it a really moving piece of prose, and attached it to the end of the song.”
5. Love Is A Bourgeois Construct (Nighttime Radio Edit)
By the time of Electric, the twelfth studio album, which was released in 2013, PSB had more or less given up concerning themselves whether or not any singles made it into the charts. This was reflected by the fact that they were largely digital only-releases, made available via downloads. Love Is….was actually the third single lifted from Electric, and it was edited down from its near seven-minutes in length to a more radio-friendly four and a bit minutes. The tongue-in-cheek title applied to the edit is another sign that the boys weren’t fussed about being A-listed by any radio station.
SIDE B
1. A Cloud In A Box
2. The Truck Driver and His Mate
I’ve decided to open this side of the ICA with two what would, in old-fashioned ways, be described as obscure b-sides. It was one of the great joys of using the blog a couple of years back to have an in-depth look at all the PSB singles and discovering genuinely brilliant songs for the first time.
A Cloud In A Box was released in September 2016. It came as part of the digital download with Say It To Me, the fourth single to be lifted from Super, the thirteenth studio album. I described Say It To Me as a banger of a tune which, during PSB’s imperious phase, would have certainly smashed into the higher echelons of the singles chart. I went on to say that describe A Cloud In A Box as being a thousand times bigger in terms of it being a banger, suggesting it was Faithless meets Left To My Own Devices. I’m not exaggerating.
The Truck Driver and His Mate dates from 1996, and was one of the b-sides on Before, the advance single from sixth studio album, Bilingual. It’s an absolute joy, driven along by a rocky and raucous, nay, make that a glamorous beat, topped with a lyric packed with innuendo and humour.
3. This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave
It’s A Sin may well be is the best-known of the songs that Neil has written about his unhappy time attending a school which had all sorts of strict rules, but I’ve always had a real soft spot for this album track from 1990’s Behaviour. There’s also a hidden depth to this one, as Neil would later reveal that the song title, and indeed the sentiments within, were meant to refer to the fall of communism in eastern Europe. I also love that quite a bit of the tune feels like something New Order might have written.
4. Pandemonium
In which the duo write and record a pop song in 2009 that could have come from just about any time in their career from the 90s onwards. It can be found on Yes, the tenth studio album. It was later revealed Pandemonium had been written with the idea that it be recorded by Kylie Minogue, but for some unknown reason, it was turned down – as indeed were a handful of other PSB-written songs. Neil was later to remark ‘ I had no idea she was so picky’. I still think everyone missed a trick by not releasing this as a single.
5. Shameless
We’re shameless, we will do anything
To get our fifteen minutes of fame
We have no integrity, we’re ready to crawl
To obtain celebrity we’ll do anything at all
Who said PSB didn’t have a sense of humour? The b-side of Go West, the immense #1 hit from September 1993. I suppose having a fair idea that the Village People cover was going to be so memorable, then the task was to create, write, record and deliver something of their own that was equally majestic.
So there you have it. One in which all the really big and best-known songs had to be excluded. And there’s still plenty left off that would make for a fabulous Volume 2.
Oh, and if you fancy having a listen as to how ICA 389 might sound as a stand-alone album:-
SIDE A (18:27)
SIDE B (21:45)
JC
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 