+
+
+ a little of
=
The rest of the album is nowhere near as amazeballs at this - there's a track near the end that's close - but this is the track to beat for 2012 so far.
Fan. Fucking. Tastic.
Showing posts with label Pet Shop Boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pet Shop Boys. Show all posts
4.15.2012
12.12.2010
who didn't see this coming?
Together we'll go all the way......to #58. Certainly it deserved better, but I suppose one would have to actually promote a single - and release it at a logical time, not weeks after it first becomes available - to achieve chart success.
Wonder what happens next.
10.18.2010
1.05.2010
boo-thousand
Here's the thing - there have been plenty of lists arguing a person's/group's/etc. favorite albums of the decade recently passed. [There's one coming here soon - of course - patience.] Far more interesting to me, however, are lists of albums that disappointed someone. It really brings out the snark - hooray! - and the creative way someone can write about something that failed to live up to expectations is far more interesting than something singing the praises of something else. [Pot, kettle, etc. I get it.]
So.
Ten albums that disappointed me over the past ten years. Apparently 2002 was a really, really bad year.
10: Radiohead - Kid A [2000]
Let's start with a big one, shall we? I simply don't understand how ten years removed people can still be singing the "praises" of this album. It wasn't the moment where Radiohead [and Thom Yorke in particular] turned from one of the modern eras most gifted artists into a group of whiny bitches - that would be 1998's insufferable and unwatchable "Meeting People Is Easy" documentary - but it was the musical manifestation of two years of trying way too hard to not make 'OK Computer II'. Fair play, but in the meantime they ignored almost everything that made them special in the first place and made an album of sub-Warp records cast offs, uninteresting sonic experiments and shat on one of their potentially greatest songs - "Motion Picture Soundtrack" - by, erm, soundtracking it with a dying organ and cheap choral synths.
Not that it's without its merits, of course. They did get "How To Disappear Completely" right and the electro-experiment worked in the fantastic "Idioteque" and the wonderfully paranoid "Everything In It's Right Place", but best of all was the bass-and-horn cacophony of "The National Anthem". Yes, I just listed off 2/5ths of the album, but the other 3/5ths is so horribly wretched, so terribly misguided, so just not good that it kills any good will that can be earned by those four tracks.
This is the sound of a band melting down, a band disappearing up their own collective ass, of a once mighty act falling. It's the kind of record that should have killed them, not furthered their reputation as the world's greatest band. It certainly was a game changer, that I can't argue - it made it impossible to take this band seriously anymore.
Say what you will, but 'Kid A' sucks.
09: Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk [2002]
First there was the cheap- and rushed-sounding 'Venus: Orbiting' disc of 'To Venus And Back', but that was forgivable because it was hastily written & assembled and rush recorded on the back of a massive world tour to get out in time to pair it with a live album. Fair enough. Then there was the just plain awful 'Strange Little Girls' covers album but that was apparently a rush-job done to get out of her contract. Not really fair to fans, but fine. Do what you've gotta do.
Then comes this nonsense, a "proper" album with "proper" time spent on it, the album we were supposedly waiting for. Quite frankly, it was even worse than the two before it. More listenable than 'Strange Little Girls' perhaps, but at least that had the shock of being so awful going for it. 'Scarlet's Walk' suffers a far worse sin - it's boring. Dull dull dull.
Oh, and overlong. 'Boys For Pele' got away with being a third longer than it needed to be because it kept things interesting with the harpsichord and electronic piano experiments and mini-interludes that served as palette cleansers every once in a while. 'Scarlet's Walk' was one go-nowhere piano meandering after another, all married to a ludicrous concept about a hooker hitching across the US after 9/11. Or something like that.
It doesn't matter. If you need a good nap, put this one on.
[This one won out for the list over any other Tori Amos album in the last decade because it was the moment you had to admit she was really never coming back. I've always had more of a soft spot for 'The Beekeeper' than most, though it is pretty bad. 'American Doll Posse' could have been great with some editing and I still have no idea what to make of the nonsense that is 'Abnormally Attracted To Sin'. The less said about 'Midwinter's Graces' or whatever it was called the better.]
08: GusGus - Attention [2002]
This will be an easy one. GusGus was exactly what you thought a 4AD dance act would sound like - one foot firmly on the dance floor, another in the world of ethereal pop. My total adoration of 'Polydistortion' - and to a lesser extent 'This Is Normal' - is no secret. I wanted very much to like this album as well, but they made it very, very hard.
To be fair, it followed a complete overhaul of GusGus as an artistic collective. Now they were down to a slim four [or three, I forget] - the musical core was essentially the pre-GusGus house act T-World, fronted by new female vocalist Earth. [To be fair, former vocalist Daníel Ágúst did show up for a guest spot on "Desire" and it was just as bad.] In any case, on 'Attention' they went from something special to just another sub-par dance act in a landscape cluttered with them. Sad. They would never recover. Even sadder.
07: Sonic Youth - NYC ghosts + flowers [2000]
Let's be honest: Sonic Youth's recorded history is littered with some pretty bad ideas. That said, they generally saved their best ideas for the proper albums, so if you pretended that was the extent of their discography you were generally doing OK. Heading into 2000, though, they were in a rough spot. Their last album proper - 1998's 'A Thousand Leaves' - was a blatant attempt to re-capture 'Daydream Nation' that didn't quite work. [It wasn't bad but it certainly sits among their lesser albums at this point.] They followed that up with the well-intended but unlistenable mess of 'SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century'. They had also had a chunk of their gear stolen at a recent show and this was their first album recorded without it.
A chance to be reborn? Sure. As 21st century beat poets? Err...no thanks. The music plods, the lyrics are embarrassing even for Sonic Youth - "boys to to Jupiter/get more stupider/girls go to Mars/become rock stars"? Really? - and, well, the end result was terrible. They rebounded, truly reborn like a phoenix from the actual flames on 2002's 'Murray Street', but this will forever be a blot on a once pretty amazing album discography. [Joined at the end of the decade by the mess that was 'The Eternal'.]
06: Sigur Ros - ( ) [2002]
Where to even begin? Formless, repetitive, overly precious, trying-too-hard musical masturbation that got the "next big thing" hype so people accepted it. After the impossible beauty of 'Ágætis byrjun' this album was going to prove that album to be a fluke or to truly be an "alright start". Unfortunately - and, sadly, unsurprisingly - it proved the former, and the rest of the decade only drove that fact home. *sigh*
05: Suede - A New Morning [2002]
It's almost too easy. What were they even thinking? There is nothing - I repeat NOTHING - redeemable about this one. Even the cover art is horrendous. I can't even put it into words - the music speaks to the embarrassment itself. Nothing to see here.
04: Duran Duran - Red Carpet Massacre [2007]
What was promised was an 'Notorious' update - that's how I read it, anyways. What we got was the sound of the once "IT" band trying far too hard to once again become cool with the kids by hitching their wagon to the new "IT" producers. It could have worked alright - at the time, Justin Timberlake was essentially the Duran Duran of 2006/2007 - but for whatever reason it just didn't. They've bounced back from worse before, hopefully they've learned their lesson.
03: Pet Shop Boys - Release [2002]
Another one that could have worked alright - the Pet Shop Boys "acoustic" album, if you will, only not at all acoustic - but what we got was a cycle of incredibly weak lyrics paired with coma-inducing backing tracks. No one involved - not Neil Tennant, not Chris Lowe, not guest-guitarist Johnny Marr ['Behaviour II' this certainly is not] - was on top of their game on this one. Hell, not even at the bottom of their game - it's as if the Boys hired doppelgangers to fill in for an album while they went on holiday. Fortunately they came back in time to salvage the project with the shockingly excellent 'Disco 3' - probably the album we should have gotten in the first place - and we moved on like it was all just a bad dream.
02: Super Furry Animals - Dark Days / Light Years [2009]
Maybe it's because we're so close to the fact, but the mess that is SFA's 9th long player still stings. While there's no arguing that each album they released after 2001's 'Rings Around the World' offered increasingly diminishing returns, I never thought any of them were without their merits - 2005's 'Love Kraft' is particularly unfairly maligned - and was anxious awaiting this one.
Instead of another mini-pop masterpiece, though, we got a group of stoners releasing a string of inside jokes set to music. Great. A recent re-listen revealed what I initially thought to be true - the fantastic "Inaugural Trams" can sit comfortably alongside past glories as a fantastic SFA single, but nothing else here is worth saving. Not the 6-minute monster riff that ultimately goes nowhere of "Crazy Naked Girls", not the piss-poor "Mt.", not even the Cian led electro-fest closer "Pric" is up to any sort of high standard the band once held themselves to.
That it was continually praised as their finest record in years only made the whole thing more infuriating. A chink in the armor and hopefully nothing more, but for once I'm very apprehensive about what comes next.
01 - Björk - Volta [2007]
Fuck you, Björk. That's all I have to say about this, really.
So.
Ten albums that disappointed me over the past ten years. Apparently 2002 was a really, really bad year.
10: Radiohead - Kid A [2000]
Let's start with a big one, shall we? I simply don't understand how ten years removed people can still be singing the "praises" of this album. It wasn't the moment where Radiohead [and Thom Yorke in particular] turned from one of the modern eras most gifted artists into a group of whiny bitches - that would be 1998's insufferable and unwatchable "Meeting People Is Easy" documentary - but it was the musical manifestation of two years of trying way too hard to not make 'OK Computer II'. Fair play, but in the meantime they ignored almost everything that made them special in the first place and made an album of sub-Warp records cast offs, uninteresting sonic experiments and shat on one of their potentially greatest songs - "Motion Picture Soundtrack" - by, erm, soundtracking it with a dying organ and cheap choral synths.
Not that it's without its merits, of course. They did get "How To Disappear Completely" right and the electro-experiment worked in the fantastic "Idioteque" and the wonderfully paranoid "Everything In It's Right Place", but best of all was the bass-and-horn cacophony of "The National Anthem". Yes, I just listed off 2/5ths of the album, but the other 3/5ths is so horribly wretched, so terribly misguided, so just not good that it kills any good will that can be earned by those four tracks.
This is the sound of a band melting down, a band disappearing up their own collective ass, of a once mighty act falling. It's the kind of record that should have killed them, not furthered their reputation as the world's greatest band. It certainly was a game changer, that I can't argue - it made it impossible to take this band seriously anymore.
Say what you will, but 'Kid A' sucks.
09: Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk [2002]
First there was the cheap- and rushed-sounding 'Venus: Orbiting' disc of 'To Venus And Back', but that was forgivable because it was hastily written & assembled and rush recorded on the back of a massive world tour to get out in time to pair it with a live album. Fair enough. Then there was the just plain awful 'Strange Little Girls' covers album but that was apparently a rush-job done to get out of her contract. Not really fair to fans, but fine. Do what you've gotta do.
Then comes this nonsense, a "proper" album with "proper" time spent on it, the album we were supposedly waiting for. Quite frankly, it was even worse than the two before it. More listenable than 'Strange Little Girls' perhaps, but at least that had the shock of being so awful going for it. 'Scarlet's Walk' suffers a far worse sin - it's boring. Dull dull dull.
Oh, and overlong. 'Boys For Pele' got away with being a third longer than it needed to be because it kept things interesting with the harpsichord and electronic piano experiments and mini-interludes that served as palette cleansers every once in a while. 'Scarlet's Walk' was one go-nowhere piano meandering after another, all married to a ludicrous concept about a hooker hitching across the US after 9/11. Or something like that.
It doesn't matter. If you need a good nap, put this one on.
[This one won out for the list over any other Tori Amos album in the last decade because it was the moment you had to admit she was really never coming back. I've always had more of a soft spot for 'The Beekeeper' than most, though it is pretty bad. 'American Doll Posse' could have been great with some editing and I still have no idea what to make of the nonsense that is 'Abnormally Attracted To Sin'. The less said about 'Midwinter's Graces' or whatever it was called the better.]
08: GusGus - Attention [2002]
This will be an easy one. GusGus was exactly what you thought a 4AD dance act would sound like - one foot firmly on the dance floor, another in the world of ethereal pop. My total adoration of 'Polydistortion' - and to a lesser extent 'This Is Normal' - is no secret. I wanted very much to like this album as well, but they made it very, very hard.
To be fair, it followed a complete overhaul of GusGus as an artistic collective. Now they were down to a slim four [or three, I forget] - the musical core was essentially the pre-GusGus house act T-World, fronted by new female vocalist Earth. [To be fair, former vocalist Daníel Ágúst did show up for a guest spot on "Desire" and it was just as bad.] In any case, on 'Attention' they went from something special to just another sub-par dance act in a landscape cluttered with them. Sad. They would never recover. Even sadder.
07: Sonic Youth - NYC ghosts + flowers [2000]
Let's be honest: Sonic Youth's recorded history is littered with some pretty bad ideas. That said, they generally saved their best ideas for the proper albums, so if you pretended that was the extent of their discography you were generally doing OK. Heading into 2000, though, they were in a rough spot. Their last album proper - 1998's 'A Thousand Leaves' - was a blatant attempt to re-capture 'Daydream Nation' that didn't quite work. [It wasn't bad but it certainly sits among their lesser albums at this point.] They followed that up with the well-intended but unlistenable mess of 'SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century'. They had also had a chunk of their gear stolen at a recent show and this was their first album recorded without it.
A chance to be reborn? Sure. As 21st century beat poets? Err...no thanks. The music plods, the lyrics are embarrassing even for Sonic Youth - "boys to to Jupiter/get more stupider/girls go to Mars/become rock stars"? Really? - and, well, the end result was terrible. They rebounded, truly reborn like a phoenix from the actual flames on 2002's 'Murray Street', but this will forever be a blot on a once pretty amazing album discography. [Joined at the end of the decade by the mess that was 'The Eternal'.]
06: Sigur Ros - ( ) [2002]
Where to even begin? Formless, repetitive, overly precious, trying-too-hard musical masturbation that got the "next big thing" hype so people accepted it. After the impossible beauty of 'Ágætis byrjun' this album was going to prove that album to be a fluke or to truly be an "alright start". Unfortunately - and, sadly, unsurprisingly - it proved the former, and the rest of the decade only drove that fact home. *sigh*
05: Suede - A New Morning [2002]
It's almost too easy. What were they even thinking? There is nothing - I repeat NOTHING - redeemable about this one. Even the cover art is horrendous. I can't even put it into words - the music speaks to the embarrassment itself. Nothing to see here.
04: Duran Duran - Red Carpet Massacre [2007]
What was promised was an 'Notorious' update - that's how I read it, anyways. What we got was the sound of the once "IT" band trying far too hard to once again become cool with the kids by hitching their wagon to the new "IT" producers. It could have worked alright - at the time, Justin Timberlake was essentially the Duran Duran of 2006/2007 - but for whatever reason it just didn't. They've bounced back from worse before, hopefully they've learned their lesson.
03: Pet Shop Boys - Release [2002]
Another one that could have worked alright - the Pet Shop Boys "acoustic" album, if you will, only not at all acoustic - but what we got was a cycle of incredibly weak lyrics paired with coma-inducing backing tracks. No one involved - not Neil Tennant, not Chris Lowe, not guest-guitarist Johnny Marr ['Behaviour II' this certainly is not] - was on top of their game on this one. Hell, not even at the bottom of their game - it's as if the Boys hired doppelgangers to fill in for an album while they went on holiday. Fortunately they came back in time to salvage the project with the shockingly excellent 'Disco 3' - probably the album we should have gotten in the first place - and we moved on like it was all just a bad dream.
02: Super Furry Animals - Dark Days / Light Years [2009]
Maybe it's because we're so close to the fact, but the mess that is SFA's 9th long player still stings. While there's no arguing that each album they released after 2001's 'Rings Around the World' offered increasingly diminishing returns, I never thought any of them were without their merits - 2005's 'Love Kraft' is particularly unfairly maligned - and was anxious awaiting this one.
Instead of another mini-pop masterpiece, though, we got a group of stoners releasing a string of inside jokes set to music. Great. A recent re-listen revealed what I initially thought to be true - the fantastic "Inaugural Trams" can sit comfortably alongside past glories as a fantastic SFA single, but nothing else here is worth saving. Not the 6-minute monster riff that ultimately goes nowhere of "Crazy Naked Girls", not the piss-poor "Mt.", not even the Cian led electro-fest closer "Pric" is up to any sort of high standard the band once held themselves to.
That it was continually praised as their finest record in years only made the whole thing more infuriating. A chink in the armor and hopefully nothing more, but for once I'm very apprehensive about what comes next.
01 - Björk - Volta [2007]
Fuck you, Björk. That's all I have to say about this, really.
9.06.2009
oh now look what you've gone and done!
I can sum it all up in two words:Dancing skyscrapers.
Oh, yes. The Pet Shop Boys brought their live show back in a big way.
Say what you will about how great 2006's 'Fundamental' album is/was - better than 'Release'! Oh wait, even past that it's quite good on its own merits, isn't it? - the tour behind it was...well, a bit lacking. Some very welcome set list surprises to be sure - "Shopping"! "Flamboyant"! Did I mention "S-H-O-PP-I-N-G"?! - but the stage show itself was a bit boring even with the kind-of-neat-but-could-have-been-used-to-better-effect evolving boxes. Those dancers? Terrible. Even the music wasn't as mixed up as they usually get for the live show, giving you the same effect of staying at home and turning up the records really, really loudly.
WELL
I am very, very happy to report that all of those problems have been fixed and Pandemonium - On Tour ranks up there with Performance and Discovery in terms of Pet Shop Boys tours. Yes, I said it.
First, the set list! When it first appeared on the internet, people were very quick to cry "FAKE!", and with good reason. Not only did it contain just half of current album 'Yes' but there were some real oddballs and too-good-to-be-true songs on there. "Two divided by zero"? "Why don't we live together?"? "Do I have to?"? Did someone expect us to believe this?
Except believe it we had to because it was real. Much like the set lists from PJ Harvey's tour behind 'Uh Huh Her', it's as if the Boys got bored in the studio one day, wrote down all of their songs on little pieces of paper, threw them into a hat and picked out the first 20 or so to be the set list for the upcoming tour. It is, honestly, as close as you can reasonably expect to get to a perfect Pet Shop Boys set list in 2009.
[So, of course I've some issues with it. First - please stop it with "Se a vida e". It's one of your three worst singles ever and we don't need to hear it every tour. Thank you for using "Discoteca" as the ending coda to it, that was very welcome - maybe do that one instead next time? Thanks.
Second - the Boys obviously have a vast catalogue and you're never going to be able to fit everything you want to into one show, particularly when you're as chained to a non-changing set list as their shows require you to be. The medley of hits at the Brits was fun and even necessary in such a situation, but layering one song on top of another and/or teasing us with something we wanted to hear a lot - say, "Closer to heaven" - before launching into something we wanted to hear less - "Left to my own devices" in this example, which it should be mentioned had been teased a song earlier leading into something we wanted to hear even less, "Always on my mind" - got a bit tiring. That said, did we need to hear "Go West" again? Probably not. Did we need to hear "Go West" with the beats of "Paninaro"? Abso-fucking-lutely. So thank you.
Third - "New York City boy"? Really? Oh well.]
Gripe #1 over.
As mentioned before, the set list doesn't change from show to show so there's no point in reproducing it here. I will, however, talk about some of the highlights:
ONE: "Two divided by zero" / "Why don't we live together?": with a bit of "In the night" thrown in for good measure. Where do we begin? First, two completely overlooked gems from 'Please' - which is overlooked in its own right, all you ever hear about are the singles - back to back for a nice flashback to 1986. As if that wasn't enough, during the former we got a cube-head fashion show and the latter not only brought us singing and dancing skyscrapers but also a Chris Lowe dance. Check this shit out:
Amazing. Following it with "Always on my mind" was mean - yes, we get it you need to play the #1s but let us down from our shock high a little easier next time.
TWO: Starting the show with a "More than a dream" tease before launching into "Heart". With cubeheads for everyone! The only downside of this was we didn't get a proper "More than a dream", but it was worth the sacrifice. [PS - "Heart" makes a great opener even if I never would have thought of it myself.]
THREE: The slow section in the middle. Yes, I loved the slow section. People don't usually say that, but here goes. You've just finished the one-two punch of "Always on my mind" and "Left to my own devices" and the crowd is going apeshit. [I might be tired of the former but apparently I'm the only one.] It's time to follow up with another hit. So we get a Chris Lowe piano solo [*SWOON*] followed by a down-tempo b-side, "Do I have to?" And it totally works. I'll admit, I've never been a big fan of the song but this performance totally changed my mind about it. Beautiful. AND THEN, let's morph that into "King's Cross" and get everyone super wistful. Check and check. Next we'll pick up the tempo ever so slightly with the also not-exactly-uplifting-but-gorgeous "The way it used to be". Done. Finally, cap the section off with an absolutely MASSIVE rendition of "Jealousy". Perfect. It's so thrilling - again, remember this is the slow section - that my excitement carries me through *yawn* "Suburbia" [again, fine but it's been done] into...
FOUR: "ALL OVER THE WORLD". Why isn't this a fucking single? As ridiculous as you'd think it would be live and then some. As great as their singles discography is, the Boys have had plenty of missed opportunities in that department but this one shoots right to the top spot of "Pet Shop Boys songs that should have been singles". Seriously.
Then they ruin that with "Se a vida e" *eyeroll* and the not-as-bad-as-I-was-expecting-but-overall-kind-of-pointless "Viva la Vida" cover over the backing track to "Domino dancing". At least we got to see Neil in a crown and cape walking around a park with an umbrella.
"It's a sin", duh, ends the main set. It is, of course, HUGE. They disappear and come back for...
FIVE and SIX: "Being boring" and - wait for it - "West End girls". Yes, "West End girls" was a highlight. They did it dance mix style, for heavens sake. I thought I was tired of it, but I totally wasn't.
Not to gloss over "Being boring" - gorgeous. Stunning. I was going to call "Jealousy" their best slowie but I'd have to save it for this one. There's a reason this is a fan favorite - no, THE fan favorite.
Question one: when's the DVD?
Question two: when's the next tour? [I've decided it has to include "Violence". It just has to.]
Oh yes, quick Gripe #2: the tour merchandise was terrible this go round. T-shirt selections:
- a red shirt with the "Go West" buttons printed on the front. A bit late with this one, aren't we?
- a black shirt with a gold/purple/shiny Pandemonium "P" on the front. Kind of tacky and unwearable - though Neil was rocking it for the first part of the show. He's so cool and uncool all at the same time, I love it.
- a white shirt with the 'Yes' checkmark on the front and "YES" in black letters on the back. Not bad, but white shirts are kind of terrible. Would've been AMAZING on black.
- a really ugly olivey/grey shirt with the PSB block logo in multi color on the back and tour dates on the back. Now you're getting somewh....wait, those are the European dates. Nevermind.
Then there were a couple girl shirts - including a "West End girls one", was this a PSB clearance house? - along with an overpriced hoodie, the obligatory tour book, and a coffee mug. Oh, and a poster - but not the cool hand drawn poster from that contest they had on the website which I totally wanted, just the album cover that sad "On Tour 2009/2010" on it. Bummer.
6.09.2009
suuuuuper Tuesday!
Today is the biggest release date we've had in quite some time...for me, anyways.It is the day that Kasabian unleash their third album - the still awkwardly titled 'West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum' - on the US. [The UK got it yesterday...at least we're not waiting months and years this time.] Sonic Youth go indie with 'The Eternal' - hope you got yr buy early get now in for the live LP, there's a new download coming later this week and they've said they'll give us the iTunes bonus track once they have the rights to it back. Huzzah! Placebo return with the not-awful-despite-all-signs-pointing-in-that-direction 'Battle For The Sun'. After the shitfest of 'Meds', that's good enough for me.
In the digital realm, Little Boots gives us the 'Illuminations' EP while we wait for the album which was released yesterday overseas. [Bastards.] Pet Shop Boys have expanded the release of "Did you see me coming?" to include all b-sides and remixes for the US over two digital EPs which was very nice of them as there's a couple tracks not on the UK physical release we can now have.
It's only 7:42 am and my credit card is already tired.
4.24.2009
single formatting done right: "Did you see me coming?"
So.The official Pet Shop Boys site says "Did you see me coming?" is being released on June 1st on the following formats:
2-track CD
1. Did you see me coming?
2. After the event
Maxi CD
1. Did you see me coming? (PSB 12" mix)
2. The former enfant terrible
3. Up and down
12” Vinyl
1A Did you see me coming? (PSB 12” mix)
1B Did you see me coming? (Unicorn Kid mix)
2 The way it used to be (Richard X mix)
Digital Bundle 1
1. Did you see me coming?
2. Pet Shop Boys Brits medley
Digital Bundle 2
1. Did you see me coming? (Unicorn Kid mix)
2. The way it used to be (Richard X mix)
Digital Bundle 3
1. Did you see me coming? (PSB 12” mix)
2. The former enfant terrible (Bring it on mix)
Nice tracklist there. A Richard X mix of something was on my wishlist when talking about potential remixers with "the boys" and I rarely get my wish, so that's nice. Three new b-sides is also a treat, and a 12" format this time makes me super happy. All of this almost makes up for the second single not being "All over the world".
However.
I'm over these digital exclusive tracks. And that had better not be the artwork on the official site because it is fucking ugly. Oh well. It's more right than "Love etc." was, so I'll give them that.
3.27.2009
yes?
So.Official word of a vinyl format for 'Yes'...which costs a mere £300.00.
11 LPs - a track per side with the instrumental [exclusive, of course] on the b-side - in a ridiculously nice box. This isn't an album, it's a piece of art. Full info at the Vinyl Factory.
I was hoping for something a little more...affordable.
My birthday is May 6th, by the way - not long after this one is available - for those that might need a gift idea...
3.25.2009
boo etc.
The UK singles for "Love etc." come packaged in card sleeves.:(
On top of that, there's still no news of a vinyl format for the single.
:( :(
There are rumors of an LP pressing of 'Yes' coming in July...perhaps concurrent with the second single release, a la the vinyl release of 'Fundamentalism Vol 2' / the "Minimal" single release? Hrm...
[The single is also available on US iTunes today.]
2.19.2009
I'm so obsessed with this record it's starting to scare even me
Lots more "Yes"-related stuff lately, let's see...Most importantly, they've put up 30 second samples of each track at iTunes UK. You don't need to be in the UK to listen to em, just go to the iTunes shop home page and then switch countries at the bottom of the screen. You can't buy it, but you can listen. And it sounds yummy.
Two. You can download their remix of Lady Gaga's 'Eh Eh [Nothing I Can Say]' thanks to Aol.co.uk. Honestly, I've grabbed it but haven't bothered listening to it yet, so let me know how it is.
Three. The Boys performed a massive 9 1/2 minute medley of the hits last night at the Brits - including parts of 'Love etc' and now-all-but-confirmed-second-single 'All over the world'. With MASSIVE Nutcracker Suite sample. Fantastic. My favorite part is about a third of the way in where they put the vocals from 'Go West' over the backing track of 'Paninaro'. Amazing. It's all over youtube, or right here:
The Brandon Flowers and Lady Gaga cameos were a bit pointless, but it's still fantastic. I was kind of hoping an audio of it might end up on a future b-side, but apparently it's the bonus track for pre-ordering the album from iTunes UK. So phooey.
Four. Umm..there was something else. Oh yes. You can pre order the album officially now at Amazon.co.uk and Recordstore.co.uk - the latter also has a bundle deal for the 2 'Love etc' CDs for 3.50. A steal. Still no vinyl formats listed anywhere for the album OR single. Double phooey. Please don't disappoint me on this one.
Five. They've announced two shows in London this summer, but that's it so far. US tour, yes? [I suppose we should nail down a US release first...] I'm expecting to travel to see them, but London might be a bit far.
Six. I'm listening to each album and its Further Listening disc in chronological order ahead of the actual album, hopeing it might help me forget we still have over a month to wait. Which means two things: one, I need to compile my own Further Listening discs for "Nightlife", "Release" and "Funtamental"; and two, I can decide once and for all if "Release" is the least best Pet Shop Boys album. [Hint: it is.] At the very least, I can finally decide of "Actually" or "Behaviour" is the most best. [Hint: it's "Actually".] Done and done.
I always forget how good "Please" is - especially the second half.
2.13.2009
ahh yes...but mostly, no
So.Pet Shop Boys finally released format information for 'Love etc.' via their website, and this is what we'll be getting come March 16th:
CD1
1. Love etc.
2. Gin and Jag
CD2
1. Love etc. (Album version)
2. Love etc. (Pet Shop Boys mix)
3. Love etc. (Gui Boratto remix)
4. Love etc. (Kurd Maverick remix)
5. Love etc. (Frankmusik Star & Garter dub)
6. Love etc. (Kurd Maverick dub)
Digital Bundle 1
1. Love etc.
2. We're all criminals now
3. Vulnerable
4. Did you see me coming?
Digital Bundle 2
1. Love etc. (Pet Shop Boys mix)
2. Love etc. (Gui Boratto remix)
3. Love etc. (Kurd Maverick remix)
4. Love etc. (Frankmusik Star & Garter dub)
Two things.
One - a digital only proper b-side? No.
Two - no vinyl format? I want - nay, need - a 12" format with the artwork in all its minimal glory to hang on the wall next to the LP of "Yes". They had so better be forgetting to have listed one - with 'We're all criminals now', please - or I'm gonna be a bit upset.
They learned from the mistake of not releasing a commercial remix format for 'I'm with Stupid', but they've replaced it with a new mistake.
:(
2.05.2009
it's nice
Hrm.update : After a few listens, I quite like it. Not the stormer I was expecting from a PSB/Xenomania collab - then again, if I was really paying attention to 'The Loving Kind', it would've been exactly what I was expecting - but it's quite good. I think the PSB Maxi-mix is going to be a stunner and I can't wait to hear what other remixers do with it. It bodes well for the LP, that's for sure - my knee-jerk reaction is what this is what "Release" should've been. Pbbbt.
update 2: So - not surprisingly - 'Love, etc.' is gone from YouTube today. Hope you enjoyed it while you could. Above is the supposed artwork in it's place. LOVELY!
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