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Our Best Song - Pet Shop Boys


Devon Malcolm

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A spin-off from my critically acclaimed 'My Best Film' series sees D-Mal explore the back catalogue of one of the greatest pop groups in British music history, namely Pet Shop Boys.

 

I still remember seeing the video for West End Girls on TV-am back in 1985 and thinking "Oh that was pretty good. Best not tell me dad though because he'll think I'm a poof." and being a fan of theirs ever since. They're still making great music as well, Vocal is a fantastic song.

 

In terms of my favourite, I'm going for, narrowly ahead of Suburbia and I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing:-

 

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That's the way to start a thread!

 

I love this topic, because with music, it'll always be completely subjective and down to personal taste, i love all of the tracks you boys have mentioned, but for me, my favourite is probably Rent.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d0GARTk_Nk

 

When i'm feeling particularly gay however, you'll struggle to stop me marching up and down the kitchen singing along to New York City Boy.

 

Edit: How the arse do you embed a video or edit the URL link on this new board!?

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You're in for a treat pal. 

 

D-Mal is bang on, to this day when i tell people i like the Pet Shop Boys i get "oooh! Bender" remarks, but fuck them.  One of the best British bands there is, who are completely diverse whilst always staying true to a sound which is uniquely theres.

 

You can tell your listening to a Pet Shop Boys record within about 5 seconds.

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There were a lot of groups like that from around that time. You ran the risk of being called a bummer if you liked Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yazoo and arguably New Order and OMD as well. They're all fantastic too.

 

We shouldn't forget that Neil Tennant helped Robbie Williams to easily the best song of his career (No Regrets) and teamed up with Electronic for the wonderful Getting Away With It:-

 

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Always On My Mind is one of the greatest cover versions of all time. It's amazingly confident, even to this day. Rent is a fantastic song as well.

 

Cool idea for a thread, hopefully it takes off with different bands every week or so.

 

Everybody like the Pet Shop Boys really, don't they? whether they admit it or naaat

 

Rent stands above everything else imo, it's my clear favourite.

 

Almost everything of theirs I've heard from the 80s is class though, even the real cheesy ones they probably hate now like Domino Dancing and the one with the vampire/Nosferatu vid. I'd happily listen to a comp of all singles from that decade from start to finish.

 

But Always on my Mind as one of the greatest cover versions of all time?  It's not even the greatest cover version of that song!

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Paninaro. They've had so many brilliant hits but this is definitely my favourite. Probably because it makes me wish I was a yuppy in the 80s. Where is the sample taken from in this song, where the bloke is talking about how he loves passion? It's Alright is also a brilliant track but I prefer Sterling Void's version.

 

Paninaro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ORZk-FXjSo

 

I grew up on the Pet Shop Boys as they were my Mum's favourite and my Dad quite liked them too. I think I watched their music video/album thing to death. Domino Dancing had the prettiest girlies in it if I remember rightly.

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Ah, man. I do love me some 80's synth pop and Pet Shop Boys certainly fit the bill. Funnily enough, I originally got into them when I was very young after seeing New Order's 'True Faith' video on the ITV Chart Show and falling in love with it and my musically inept mother thinking it was Pet Shop Boys, bought me Pet Shop Boys tapes instead. It was only later when I started to define my own musical tastes that I rediscovered New Order and was finally able to place 'True Faith'.

 

Already covered by Devon Malcolm but certainly Electronic was an 80's kid wet dream. A supergroup consisting of Bernard Sumner from New Order and Jonny Marr from The Smiths, plus Neil Tennant on a couple of tracks on the first album. Here's the other one that Devon didn't link to:

 

 

It's hard to really define what their 'best' song is though. A lot of their material is terribly overplayed. For instance, 'West End Girls' is probably one of the greatest singles ever but it's not going to get a lot of praise in threads like this because everyone's sick to death of it. But that's the thing with a lot of synth-pop. It's woefully catchy and there should be a lot of credit given to them for their ability to churn as many mainstream singles as they did.

 

So, turning away from that, one of my absolute favourite records when I first started learning to DJ was the B-side to DJ Culture; 'Music For Boys'. It's funny actually, because listening to it now, years later, it's incredibly shallow. But it does do a great job of epitomising 80's club music in under 4 minutes:

 

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I'd have expected you to chip into this thread positively, Au, considering your previous 'Elegia' username!

 

I got in to New Order later on, in the mid-90s actually, but they were a natural progression from Pet Shop Boys in terms of sound although that time was their Republic-era more guitar based music. PSB and New Order should have collaborated more, really. Or they still could - but only if they get Peter Hook back and they're proper New Order again.

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