Pet Shop Boys POX

Mouthing off about Taytay like he's got a record to sell eh lol

Look forward to checking new album out later.

The Swift comments are in this interview, about 35 minutes in, which is great and often very funny. Predictably they’re a lot more nuanced than reported, not that he’ll care too much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um3o8CUgHRc

IT's fine, ultimately not much better or worse than Hotspot.

Pleasantly surprised by the new album. Hotspot ended up rivaling Elysium as my least favourite album they've done. Only Will-O-The-Wisp and Dreamland stood out. I like just about everything on the new one and really enjoy how lush and refined it all sounds.

"Loneliness" and "Feel" are the keepers, "Love is the Law" too.

The Schlager Hit Parade is the only one I'm not totally sold on after a couple of plays. This is the album that should have followed Electric.

I’m three songs in and I can definitely say it’s a new Pet Shop Boys album

Neil's voice is getting a bit thin and "Loneliness" is a terrible album opener. But it's... alright! I have a feeling I'll be listening to "Why am I dancing?" and "New London Boy" quite a bit.

They released an EP of jokey songs before the pandemic that was just abysmal, and so I'll be basically glad whenever it's better than that.

I feel like I haven't heard "1980s rapping Neil" (as on New London Boy) for a while

This is much better than Hotspot, which I found listless and actively embarrassing in several spots. Best for me since Electric.

I quite enjoyed that the bonus disc for "Nonetheless" was "Furthermore".

Saw them play some tracks on a Vernon Kay presented thing a few weeks back and found it a bit cringey.

The new album sounds like one of those drugstore-dollar-bin "greatest hits" albums where a Sixties act re-records their old songs, and you buy it by mistake and get those uncanny-valley "this is the song I like...but it's not quite right somehow" shivers.

This happened to me precisely with a George Jones comp.

I think the re-records are just the arrangements for the new tour with vocals added

'I’d love to be in the House of Lords, because it’s a job, isn’t it?'

The most successful British pop duo in music history on tantrums, touring when you turn 70, and why it feels unreal to hang out with Liza Minnelli — over Lunch with the FT: https://t.co/ujKxMKGSJW

— FT Weekend (@ftweekend) April 26, 2024

A pro­du­cer for an earlier album, Stu­art Price, worked with them in Ber­lin and made them go out for din­ner in week two to the same places they’d been to in week one, in the same order. He also made them record all the tracks in alpha­bet­ical order. “And we did, didn’t we?” Ten­nant mar­vels. “And then we put them on the album in alpha­bet­ical order. It’s actu­ally quite a good logic. It worked out quite well.”

They must have cheated a little bit but so close:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_(Pet_Shop_Boys_album)

Maybe “Bourgeois Construct” was the working title for track 3…

The first few songs are the weakest for me. Once it gets to New London Boy it gets really good and stays as such. I have a lot of time for the freestyle getup on Dancing Star.

yeah I feel like it's missing a really great single up front, something like that would do wonders for this album. it's still quite good I think, especially given the point in their career that they're at. Neil's voice still sounds pretty good to me!

Hilarious interview.

Aw, teasing the idea that we could have a George Michael cover of "End of the World" is really too much. I agree it's a hidden gem though - that segue at the end of "Nervously" gets me every time.

He may dislike it because that's Tennant playing the twang guitar.