Not this.
56.
Another solid bop from the parent album
obviously a filler track
It seems to me there's something serious beginning...
...when album tracks start to leave.
56. Hit Music
Taken from the album 'Actually' now available in all good record shops
LP/Cassette/CD
Highest score: 10 (
@SmashHitter,
@slurmjunkie)
Lowest score: 2 (
@Peer_Gynt10,
@JakeMagnus)
Neil: We were in a New York club, The Pyramid, and they were playing The Art Of Noise version of 'Peter Gunn', and I found myself singing 'hit music – on the radio' to it in the taxi on the way home. The sort of idea you think of in America. So we did the song anyway. It's not exactly the same.
Chris: You can't copyright a bassline. [That's good, because I stole tons of yours for my own music – Ray]
Neil: It's also very like 'Venus'. And the strings are a bit Beatle-y, a bit like 'I Am The Walrus'. And the 'I've been working hard all day to pay the bills I have to pay' line is a complete nick from the Abba song, 'Money Money Money'. [...] Someone at the time suggested that I was obsessed with bills because I'd already mentioned them three times in songs – I was actually rather horrified when I realised that. But I like 'in Kensington or Spanish Harlem'. I wanted to have two totally contrasting places. The best bit of the song is the end where it goes into half-time. [...] It's really all about Aids, this song, though I sort of hid it at the same time. There were some more direct references, but I took them out because they weren't very good. It's about how sex had gone out of the entire nightclubbing ethos because of Aids. Nightclubbing is about sex, really, so when it's not, what's left?
Ray: I didn't realise this song had anything to do with AIDS. Making the closer of side A and opener of side B of Actually about the same topic; from 'Live and die, it's all that we know, I need a friend at the journey's end' to 'I may be wrong, but I thought we said it couldn't happen here'. 'We all need love and we want protection'. I've only heard this 1000 times and never realised. Now I want to bump my score, because my favourite sort of references are the ones I miss, and then once I find out they're completely
there and I can't believe I ever managed not to notice them.
@TrendyMüller:
It´s clever, smart and snarky. Appears more like an exercise than a song. Almost too much to actually really LIKE it.
@Peer_Gynt10:
anonymous
@ohnoitisnathan:
Sounds more like b-side music.
I'm glad y'all are enjoying yourselves (deadpanned Neil).
@DominoDancing:
Acceptable, but obviously a filler track. I'd struggle to find a slighter song on any of their albums. GeoWayne mentions a deeper meaning related to the AIDS epidemic, but that seems like a stretch, and even if the intent is there I don't think it's actually saying something interesting.
Note: I purposefully don't touch
GeoWayne's site, because you can go there yourselves. He's put TONS of work into it and somehow it would feel inappropriate to nick stuff.
@Mikey1701: Another solid bop from the parent album. One of those songs that will forever be “quite good” without ever being exceptional. Actually was the second PSB album I listened to (after Very) and Hit Music was one of the first tracks that drew me in. Over time, that impact has lessened, but it still holds a tiny sliver of my heart for that reason.
@One Stop Candy Shop: I Don't Get Excited about this one. Ego Music avant la lettre.
And finally:
@Heaven on Earth: This is one of the album’s weakest songs, but it does convey that sense of hidden desperation. Life can be so lonely sometimes, and often we wonder the reason for our existence. For eons, philosophy has existed to discover and theorize the meaning of human nature and scientific nature, or more expressively and less generalized, our specific role in the delicate cosmos of nature. “Live a lie, dance together” speaks of man’s need to be himself without all the meandering attachments of life. For really, it’s better to enjoy and grab those precocious moments of transcendence, for that’s the rare moments we feel we can be emotional. “Hit Music,” despite not being anywhere near Pet Shop Boys’ best, and I certainly can think of songs that better express this moment of vulnerability better and more artistically, does belong on the album. As a song by itself, which I rated it as such, it fails to be essential, but as an album with a certain thematic nature, it is.
