Artist: Pet Shop Boys
Label: EMI Records
Release: 2010
Running time: 79:02
Rating: 4.5/5
The legendary sweet electronic dance-pop sin that wrote itself into immortality with a pile of unforgettable hit singles through the eighties and the first half of the nineties, the British duo Pet Shop Boys, whose master class in musical vocabulary still thrills today with a legacy of an extraordinary run of hits, has decided to celebrate the official release of its first studio album and first hit. This year marks 25 years since Pet Shop Boys started pushing the boundaries of pop – middle-of-the-road music. Back in 1985 came their prophetic album “Please”, with the breakthrough hit West End Girls.
This celebratory compilation gathers the most recognizable works, the ones that tore up the charts like a storm in the second half of the eighties and through the nineties, and that keep that same restless energy going well into the new millennium too. A compilation of an ultimate string of evergreen hits! The greatest hits, in other words!
They’re laid out chronologically, going by the official single release dates. Basically it’s the top-charting hits, the ones Pet SHop Boys made the most money from, and definitely still do. Now, since we’re on the subject of their commercially biggest moments, it’s not quite 100% true. Funnily enough, there was no room on this disc for the hit It’s Allright, the third and final single from the album “Introspective” (1989), and Being Boring takes the lead in representing the hits from the album “Behaviour” (1990), ahead of the missing So Hard, which charted higher and did better commercially. But those are nitpicky remarks that don’t get in the way of enjoying almost 80 minutes of intense hit-after-hit roulette, which is exactly what this compilation is.
“Ultimate Pet Shop Boys” is also available in a different, extended edition. With a bonus DVD. It captures concert footage from the band’s legendary set at this year’s Glastonbury festival in the United Kingdom, and it also includes rare live recordings from the BBC studio that reach deeper back into the band’s past. The journey through the Pet Shop Boys concert filmography on the DVD of the extended edition of “Ultimate Pet Shop Bys” takes us back through time, all the way to 1985, the year the band’s success was born.
The band didn’t skip a single studio album in the selection. The lineup stretches from the hit West End Girls (“Please”, 1985) all the way to Love etc. (“Yes”, 2009), and the compilation “Ultimate Pet Shop Boys” is rounded off by a new single called Together, which as such is a representative document of the band’s state of mind in the fall of 2010. The release of this new track is announced for digital on 24.10.2010, and on 29.11.2010 it will be available in physical form too. The song embodies everything known under the name Pet Shop Boys, it catches the pulse of the late eighties, and it sounds incredibly retro-nostalgic. It’s a kind of “arithmetic” mean of the whole run on this disc. Basically a condensed version of this compilation in just three and a half minutes. I don’t know the story behind how it came about, but it could be an older demo recording that got polished up later. Let me remind you, by the way, that this April Pet Shop Boys already put out a standalone hit single, Love Life. Pet Shop Boys recorded that track as a demo back in 2001, while making the album “Release”, and handed it over for further work to the Swedish group Alcazar, who put out their own version of the song in 2003.
“Ulitmate Pet Shop Boys” presents the career-best moments of one of the most successful acts the British Isles ever gave to the history of “mainstream” musical entertainment. A band that never served up empty fluff, and always stood behind its own unique character, firm and untouchable. Whether in sharpness of expression, sonic splendor, seductive listenability, or the obligatory pinch of classic British melancholy and romantic longing. The electronic charm of the masterwork of the eternal pairing of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe is distilled on this release in a way you can use as a lovely gift for someone dear on special occasions, and it’s also the ideal entry point for all you curious folks who decide to hop on and ride into the ultimate world of the musical origins, life and work of Pet Shop Boys. Here’s to the next 25 years!
Lineup
Neil Tennant – vocals, keyboards, guitar
Chris Lowe – keyboards
Track List
1. West End Girls
2. Suburbia
3. Its a Sin
4. What Have I Done to Deserve This?
5. Always On My Mind
6. Heart
7. Domino Dancing
8. Left to my Own Devices
9. Being Boring
10. Where The Street Have No Name ( I Cant’t Take My Eyes Off You)
11. Go West
12. Before
13. Se a Vida e (That’s The Way Life Is)
14. New York City Boy
15. Home and Dry
16. Miracles
17. Im With Stupid
18. Love etc
19. Together
