Leaving

The video for the new Pet Shop Boys single is as elegant as the song, in stark black-and-white with echoes of Derek Jarman's "Rent" and "King's Cross".

 

Cover for CD 2, Chris and his weird hoodie. CD 1 can be seen here.

Boys on Gaga

"GaGa's going to produce a really good greatest hits album in about two years' time, isn't she?... And in many ways, that's the best achievement of all in pop music. To have an excellent greatest hits album." 

Neil Tennant

Elysium

Maybe if this were the Boys’ last album, it would all make sense. But why they decided to take things down several notches after the breath of fresh air that was Yes, is anybody’s guess ("We tend to react to our own last album," Neil says.)

Much has been made of the fact that they recorded this album in L.A. with Kanye West’s producer.  However, neither of these facts really matter sonically in the results. If anything, the record sounds recycled somehow, the Pet Shop Boys sampling their “early stuff” and then saying they never think about it.

Elysium is over literal and over earnest, with just a few life-savers (Neil Tennant still writes the best sardonic lyrics, even though two songs here are apparently just lines he heard from taxi drivers and pop stars.) But their attempts at pop balladry are downright excruciating: boring “Breathing Space”, cringe-worthy “Hold On” and trite “Give It A Go”, plus insufferable “Winner” (never thought I would have to resort to words like these when referring to their songs…)

PSB not Facebook friends

 

“We’re not on Facebook. We think it’s sinister and horrible. Pet Shop Boys are but we’re not.”

Neil Tennant, interview with The Art Desk

Pre-Elysium

The Boys are hustling with the upcoming release of Elysium, which is sounding more and more intriguing from the samples available on the net. The album, referred by Neil as their most "beautiful" and "deep", has a lot of references to middle age apparently, even though they are aging quite well after an awkward phase in the early 2000’s.

They will be playing the entire album live next week in Berlin and have just announced a new single, “Leaving”, another rather subdued choice, with more-sad-than-happy lyrics and some totally throwback PSB sounds. Potential for huge remixes.

In a recent interview to Vanity Fair, Neil talks about the being involved in the Olympics, the new album and how the video for Domino Dancing might have ruined things in America for them. He also talks about how pop music isn't always given its proper credit:

"There’s always been this ancient war between pop and rock. Rock is meant to be significant, therefore people write about it in terms of significance. Pop is meant to be throwaway."

And on an exclusive video for The Huffington Post UK, Chris can barely disguise his boredom. Classic.

Compare to 1986.

Olympic Boys

Definitely the most WTF moment of the ceremony.

Elysium cover

The cover of the new Pet Shop Boys album makes me think of perfume. Are they also releasing a new fragrance?

Speaking of covers, the Boys (fresh from performing at Wimbledon as pre-Olympic match entertainment) are about to release a cover of classic Bee Gees' track "I started a joke" as a B-side to "Winner."

Pet Shop Boys meets Roller Derby

The worst Pet Shop Boys video ever?

Story here.

Hot influence

''I think if you're English, and especially if you're from London, and you're an electronic musician, then [the Pet Shop Boys are] definitely going to have an influence and be an inspiration."

Hot Chip's Felix Martin

Winner is a loser

The PSB announced the new single for Elysium, which so far is a snorefest. After beautiful but barely moving Invisible, they came up with a synth ballad for the Olympic Games, which is as cheesy as it sounds.

Invisible

The Pet Shop Boys announced a new album for September and released the song Invisible with a boring art film. If the song is any indication, Elysium will be quite low key.

Muse vs. PSB

Brilliant mashup that creates a whole new "What have I done to deserve this?"out of Muse's "Uprising".

Eric Watson 1955-2012

He was the first one to photograph the Pet Shop Boys. Eric Watson was the visual architect who helped create the classic PSB aesthetics.

 He took the pictures for the covers of “West End girls",  "Opportunities", "Love comes quickly", "Suburbia", "It's a sin", "What have I done to deserve this?", "Rent", "Heart", "It's alright", "So hard", "Jealousy", "DJ culture", "I don't know what you want but I can't give it anymore"  and albums "Please", Behaviour" and “Nightlife”. He also directed many classic PSB videos, including "West End girls", "Suburbia", "Domino dancing" and "Jealousy" as well as the 1991 concert film, "Performance" considered by many to be the Pet Shop Boys’ best concert. He also took pics of other pop stars of the 80s.

On helping create the PSB aesthetics, he said: "We realised there was something about somebody singing and somebody else doing nothing – just looking, then looking away – that adds a hideous tension. It's creepy but also, I suppose, charming. It was only later we realised we'd created a product."

Queen West End Girls

Trio Plum Thunder made the most perfect homage to both Toronto and the "West End Girls" video by the Pet Shop Boys, with hilarious Toronto-centric lyrics.

The classic:

PSB and A-ha

So A-ha has ended, but Morten Harket keeps on going. The Norwegian band’s lead vocalist is releasing another solo album in April (his fifth), and it contains a new song by the Pet Shop Boys, titled “Listening” (which apparently is a ballad). The bands have never collaborated while A-ha was active, perhaps because Neil and Chris were always peeved at losing the James Bond theme to A-ha in 1987. But you can’t really compare A-ha's "The Living Daylights" to the Boys'…

Format

Today the Pet Shop Boys release Format, a 38-track compilation collecting B-sides and bonus tracks released from 1996 to 2009 (from "The truck driver and his mate" to "Up and down"). It follows on from their 1995 B-sides collection Alternative (which had much niftier packaging.) But their career-long love affair with the B-side is one more reason why the Boys are better than your favorite band (even though this is probably one of their weakest album covers, compared to previous works by PSB cover-maker Mark Farrow.)

PSB xmas 1982

PSB Christmas 2011

Pet Shop Boys Christmas card. What, no exclusive track this year?

Pet Shop Boys plans for 2012

After a pretty positive run of their first ballet, “The Most Incredible Thing” (which returns to the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London from March 25th to April 7^th) and participating in the “biggest tour in UK music history” as opening acts for Take That, the boys are back in the studio preparing a new album for next year. But early in the year, we’ll have a special treat. Neil accidently announced “Format”, a new collection of B-sides, which picks up where “Alternative” ended.  As he mentioned, some of their best songs are B-sides. “Because on a B-side you can do what you like”.

Take That, Boys

The Boys are supporting Take That in their tour with a mini Pandemonium tour, and apparently boosting the economy of the Northeast of England. For those who never understood the popularity of Take That or the scale of this tour, it's enough to say that this is the UK's biggest stadium tour of all time with 1.34 million tickets snapped up within 24 hours of going on sale. The Guardian said that having the Pet Shop Boys as an opening act "felt a bit like bringing Michelangelo in to do the kitchen ceiling."

(It looks like Chris is under a tent?)

The Take That boys even got into the new X-Men movie soundtrack. Notice how Robbie Williams doesn't even open his mouth.