Let's anticipate the drearily titled Pet Shop Boys album "Elysium"

http://www.towleroad.com/2012/06/psb.html

Someone donkeypunch the writer for using "birth" as a verb though.

http://www.nme.com/news/pet-shop-boys/64256

for those who are at work and leery of Towleroad banner ads

haha

More info.

Not sure I love the new song but will be looking forward to hearing more from the album. I still really rate Fundamental, Yes was patchy but had a few great moments.

Not sure this guy will bring a lot to the table, but ...

The first single is out there now. It's maybe their weakest lead single yet, so disappointed. Sounds like they've gone back to the Release era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AEO21i-oN0

haha this is the single?????

Horrible.

this is super terrible, you guys

it's like everything wimpy and unlikeable about their past three releases concentrated and distilled into a super hatable song

now watch it be huge.

A friend posted this on Facebook a couple of weeks ago--this is better:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n609XaagVJo

man I thought "Invisible" was the first single and I'd already called it their Worst First Single.

Now this.

"Invisible" is an okay album track, not something that should really be a single or promo material

"Winner" is an outright troll attempt

"Winner" is a shameless Olympic cash-in right?

I've only listened to it a couple of times, but I like "Invisible" fine--good "Samurai in Autumn" melancholy.

"It's been a long time coming/We've been in the running/for so long" sounds as hamfisted as something Robbie Williams would write.

It sounds like an X Factor winner single. I can imagine it being sung on the final even down to the key change being the point when all the previous contestants run on the stage to sing along and lift up the winner.

Is this actually one of the official Olympics songs? Because if so then Muse may only have the 2nd worse track.

Oh God it's basically this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZplUPSiYpQA

^^^ though so too

Maybe this isn't for olympics. I take this song as personal statement.
You are winner of your own life. Remember your own feelings when your achieved something special and impossible dream. Didn't you feel like olympic winner at that time?
buddhaboy1972 in reply to telemetry9 (Show the comment) 1 hour ago

I woke up early from the United States to hear the new PSB song. If PSB had stock, I would be buying all of it this morning. Neil and Chris DID IT! Brilliant, This will see airplay in the U.S finally they will be a winner again in the U.S. Congratulations, bus PSB fans always new that we had a winner.

FrankMagician 4 hours ago 7

http://www.geowayne.com/psbhtml.htm

This site was originally posted on March 16, 2001

no way, really? couldn't tell

the creator is on the Pet Shop DVD discussing chart positions with unbecoming seriousness

which DVd is that Alfred?

what was the last *amazing* PSB single? i liked Love Etc fine but it was no 'imperial phase' track. we should have a poll, actually.

Actually, I'd say "Love Etc"

which DVd is that Alfred?

The documentary "A Life in Pop."

"Love Etc" is terrific, yeah. So is "Did You See Me Coming." Those two and "The Way It Used To Be" aside, the album is rubbish (and became their highest charting American album since 1996).

Is is gonna knock "Time of Your Life" off the graduation-party charts.

It's smack-dab halfway between "I Gotta Feeling" and "I Believe I Can Fly."

this is worse than it doesn't often snow at xmas. last great single imo was miracles.

here I was thinking that as they got older Tennant-Lowe would be MORE inclined to treat life ironically.

i like the xmas song but this is terrible.

IMO, "Love Etc" and "Minimal" > "Miracles"

totally

I have a request that's tangentially related. New Order once released a single called 'World In Motion' as a World Cup cash-in back in 1990. I used to have the 12", and the remixes all said "We've got the world in motion" in the chorus. The version on (The Best Of) New Order, and main edit on the 12", both say "Love's got the world in motion", a dumber lyric IMO.

Does anyone know if there's a radio edit or original mix of World In Motion with "We've" In the chorus?

(BTW Winning is terrible)

The last amazing Pet Shop Boys single was Flamboyant, but Minimal and Love etc are both very good. There are a few amazing songs on the last couple of albums The Way it Used to be, More Than a Dream, The Sodom & Gomorrah Show and Integral. The most annoying thing is they made two of the best tracks only available on the deluxe editions. Fugative should have been the first single from Fundamental and This Used to be the Future was an excellent duet with Phill Oakey that was better than almost everything on Yes.

AFAIK no such version of "World in Motion"'s single edit exists; that lyric is only in the remixes

(also, according to Wikipedia, "Integral" was a single)

(also I have always been super partial to the No Alla Violenza mix of "World in Motion")

this is screaming for a poll, how far back should it go? You only tell me you love me? Se a vida e?

Both of those were in the top 20 in the ILM poll.

The last amazing Pet Shop Boys single was Flamboyant, but Minimal and Love etc are both very good. There are a few amazing songs on the last couple of albums The Way it Used to be, More Than a Dream, The Sodom & Gomorrah Show and Integral.

OTM. Flamboyant would be my choice. Fundamental was a great album but single choices were too low-key - Sodom & Gomorrah and Integral should have been singles (Integral was a very low-key download-only release). And from Yes Pandemonium is way more persuasive than Did You See Me Coming? imo. Conversely, Release was weak but they chose the two best tracks: Home and Dry and I Get Along.

My five-year-old daughter was recently asked at school what her favourite song was and she said Pandemonium, with Always on My Mind a close second. Very proud.

Your daughter is A+ awesome

My five-year-old daughter was recently asked at school what her favourite song was and she said Pandemonium, with Always on My Mind a close second. Very proud.

― Get wolves (DL),

That is so great.

Agree that the single choices were too low key for Fundamental. I'm With Stupid was one of the weakest songs, Numb and Minimal are both good but not the obvious hits compared to the ones we mentioned. Still really like that album though, easily their best since Very.

Talking about how good Fundamental was is just making me feel so bad that this new album is sounding really bad so far. Hope that the other songs make up for the two we've heard so far. Release is their only dud album we don't need another.

I'm okay with it being a dud album if there's a "Home and Dry" on there.

Fundamental quite easily best-album-since-Very, with Nightlife close.

dunno if we've polled it (and I can't check now lol)

well we're doing one now! For Your Own Good, Poll Me Tonight - Pet Shop Boys - Nightlife

I've always liked Bilingual. I guess it's not as perfect as the albums that came before it, but there's no real dud either and even the b-sides are great. I think maybe "Before" was the wrong choice for the first single (although I think it's a great song) and people made up their minds based on that.

I remember never liking "Metamorphosis" and "Up Against It", but "To Step Aside" remains one of my favourite PSB tracks. Also "Truck Driver and his Mate" is awes.

the melody and arrangement of "A Red Letter Day" are all-time. It's the kind of rise-and-fall melodic thing that at the time they could have kept knocking out (see "I'm Not Scared") and would have squeezed my heart every time.

What fucks Bilingual up is its sequencing. They learned for their followup.

I bought "Before" on cassingle a couple months before the album and loved it: a solid post-house groove with Tennant falsetto. And still a sizable Brit and dance hit.

Sequencing does screw with "Bilingual." Also, I didn't think the Brazilian drums were a good match for the Boys, and "Red Letter Day" was too similar to "Go West," too soon. The one-two of "Bilingual" and "Release," with the more or less safe "Nightlife" in between, makes me wonder if there was some PSB agonistes in effect, as both of those outlier records found them stretching stylistically but also failing short of their potential. Dunno. I should dig up some contemporaneous interviews.

They still got US mainstream publication attention up through 1996 (Very was surprisingly their highest charting and best seller in America in years) and their reviews were still solid but those were fallow years for American fans. My editor was like uhhh when I asked to review Bilingual for the college paper.

"Very" is definitely some sort of dividing line. After that, I suppose they became a cult act, in the US at least.

I think Nightlife is patchier than Bilingual. I think the Brazilians drums are great on "Discoteca" and "Se A Vida E".

"Se a Vida E" def

Also, I think the lyrics are great on Bilingual. "It Always Comes As A Surprise", "Before", "The Survivors", "Discoteca", "To Step Aside" are all very moving, but "A Red Letter Day" always makes me tear up a little bit, especially when he gets to the part "For all of those who don't fit in...".

Elton John said it got him through a rough patch.

What fucks Bilingual up is its sequencing. They learned for their followup.

they actually list a previous intended sequencing in the Further Listening booklet so you can rip or program it the original way

all those booklets were available online and linked maybe on another thread here, does anyone know where that might be?

http://www.petshopboys.net/html/interviews/Interviews-1d.shtml

cheers!

Bilingual and Nightlife actually turned out to be quite formative records for me... bought them from the bargain bin at around the same time in 1999/2000. You could tell they were a bit over the hill but the lyrics could be affecting and (some of) the production has aged very well.

Agree with Alfred -- those first three tracks on Nightlife are amazing. I never bother listening to the rest of the record.

"Home" is getting a bit of a drubbing on this thread but I think London and (especially) Love is a Catastrophe are fantastic.

"Winner" is a bit meh but they've been continuously on/off since Bilingual so I wouldn't lose hope. And they're still one of the best live bands I've seen (pace the Yes tour in 2009 and 2010).

An interview!

Neil – Some of these fan videos are really clever. There’s a mash-up involving us that we’re so obsessed with that we’re considering performing it.
Chris – It’s so good!
Neil – It’s based on the second single of the last album called ‘Did you see me coming?’
Chris – It has Huey Lewis and the News in it, the basis is Adele, you get Rhianna and Britney; Huey Lewis, which is a surprisingly good moment. And you get a bit of that ‘Discovery Channel’ group
Paavo – There’s a little bit of clearing to do if you’re ever gonna release it.
Neil – When we were in LA, in my room you could hear classical music, in Chris’ room you can always hear banging music. One time I was walking through the kitchen thinking ‘what’s that track he’s playing? It’s a big hit, wasn’t it? What is it again?’ And then I realized it was that mash-up! It just sounds like a global number 1 hit.
Chris – Well it would do because it’s got all the best bits of loads of hit records.

I love those guys.

This album should be called Tedium.

"Winner" so bad that despite the fact that this thing is streaming on the guardian's website I haven't bothered to listen to it. :/

Here's the mash-up they talk about in that interview:

http://vimeo.com/22425181

The album is better than the single would suggest but it's not great. It's a really odd album overall, I've listened to it three times now and I'm just not sure what to think. It's better than Release for sure but the whole album just sounds confused.

Kitchen Person mostly OTM, although the song "Your Early Stuff" is kind of hilarious

The bookends are the best songs. "Requiem in Denim and Leopard Skin" is particularly poignant.

otoh "Hold On" is one of the worst songs they've ever wasted time on.

"Leaving" is very good, yes.

O_O wtf "Ego Music"

this is fucking hilarious

I've listenend to this a couple of times and well... Let's just say it's not going to be my favorite of theirs. And no way is it better than Release.

Release is such an utterly odd album in that the songwriting is often great in a simplified, classic laidback PSB manner, while there's a clear aim for an 'organic'/'natural' feel in the production, with the exception of Neil's voice strangled with stinky 2002 pitch-correction

Release vs. Loveboat Vs. Lifeblood

wot a poll that could be

Plenty of pitch correction here, which is not a minus necessarily.

This album has grown on me a fair bit. Along with Winner the only other song I really dislike is Give It Ago, the chorus is just too annoying. Leaving, Your Early Stuff, Face Like That and Requiem in Denim are all really good songs. At the moment I like it about as much as Yes although there is nothing here in the same league as The Way it Used to be or Love etc.

After a few listens I reckon it has about the same strike rate as Yes or Release - about 6/10 - but minus a single as good as Home and Dry or Love Etc. Still think Fundamental is their post-Very peak.

yep

Yeah I relistened to Fundamental last week, it sounded great. Nightlife would be a close second.

Interesting tidbit re: the title. It came from walking through Elysian Park in LA but they thought Elysian sounded like a New Order album, which is true.

I still haven't heard this album, but the general reception of the record (even from PSB fans) seems to be lukewarm to say the least. What's everyone's favourite cut on it?

The bookends.

Hey, Neil! If you're reading this, here's a title for your notebook: "The Bookends."

I think Leaving is probably the best track. Memory of The Future has really grown on me in the last few days, despite its stupid title.

I don't usually plug my articles but they're such good interviewees that I thought this may be of interest:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/13/pet-shop-boys

And said interview is linked/quoted in Andrew Sullivan's own take on the album:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/09/quotes-1.html

Most of the new album, plus one cover, live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4R4Wa3XPF0

Your Early Stuff and Invisible are amazing, baffled by some of the 'meh' for this record. Tell you what though it's a very sad album lyrically and i really wasn't expecting that.

Also..

http://www.popjustice.com/songs/pet-shop-boys-leaving-side-by-side-mix/

One of my fave bands of all time, but I haven't made it to the new one yet, due largely to the meh here (which in turn made me suspicious of all the non-meh). But I did bust out "Fundamental" again (like the ballads) and "Yes" (which is all pretty good).

Half of the album is quite enjoyable. I don't what the hell has happened to Neil Tennant's lyrical abilities of late. 'Hold On' and 'Winner' are the worst songs they've ever produced.

know