18.
[Sorry about the quality. It's gorgeously printed in Catalogue, if that helps. I found a lot of HQ scans of the other picture where Chris looks sideways, helpfully.]
18. Suburbia
8.4819444444
AU #9 BE #1 FIN #13 FRA #64 GER #2 IRL #3 ITA #18 NLD #3 NZ #5 POL (Radio 3) #1 SPA #2 SWE #6 SWI #3 UK #8 US Hot 100 #70 US Dance #36 US Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Dance Chart #17
Highest score: 11 (@Sally_Harper), 10x10 (@Farnaby, @RaggedTiger, @Jóga, @etienne, @SmashHitter, @DominoDancing, @slurmjunkie, @etcetera, @KingBruno, @Peer_Gynt10), 9.9 (@Future Lover)
Lowest score: ZERO (@Sweet Music)
Neil: We slag off suburbia but we both come from suburbia and more or less live in it.
Chris Heath: And so does that devalue the sincerity of what you do?
Neil: No. 'Suburbia' is true anyway. One of the things about being middle-class is to know that you're thoroughly imperfect. Therefore you don't think your football team is the best in the world, you don't want to command an army. It's to be obsessed by your own conscience. If Janet [Street-Porter] had a child and I hd a child she would be the one to send it to Eton, not me.
*
Neil: I said that I couldn't go it alone, there are two of us. Tom [Watkins] didn't believe that Chris did anything in the group. I said, 'Tom, we've just written a song called "Suburbia", for instance, where Chris wrote all the music.' He didn't believe me. [...] 'Everyone knows Chris doesn't do anything – and don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.'
*
'Suburbia' was the first PSB single with inner and outer sleeves. The gatefold sleeve has a white band containing the credits, purposefully echoing a film poster (the credit for Penelope Spheeris's film Suburbia, an inspiration for the song, was added to imply that the release had a relationship to the movie). Neil recalls that Chris had bought his t-shirt and cap, then tried on the Issey Miyake glasses. 'They were very expensive,' he says, 'but I said they'd look great in a photo session'. Neil's sunglasses were blacked-in with tape so as not to reflect the photographer's lights. [...] Mark Farrow: 'I just thought that that picture of Chris with those glasses and that t-shirt on was one of the best photographs I've ever seen. It's everything about Pet Shop Boys summed up to me in a photo. In my mind at that time Chris was the logo, if you like, the way Chris looked was the logo of the Pet Shop Boys.'
Ray: for once, this is a note copied from Geowayne: "The word "suburbia" dates back in English at least to the nineteenth century (and probably even earlier), though its roots are in Latin. The lyrics seem to imply that it comes from a blending of the words "suburb" and "utopia," though this may be nothing more than a bit of wordplay on Neil's part. (He says, "Suburbia—where the suburbs met utopia.") But "suburbia" is actually one of several plural forms of the ancient Latin word suburbium ("under city"), which meant pretty much what the word "suburb" means today: the outlying area surrounding the "city proper." So it in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with "utopia," a word coined from Greek roots (οὐτόπος, meaning "no place") by Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, in which he described a fictional ideal society on an imaginary island in the Atlantic Ocean. Because it was pronounced exactly the same as another Greek derivative meaning "good place" (εὖτόπος, or eutopia), the word utopia was, in effect, a pun on More's part. Given the song lyric's stated association of "suburb" and "utopia"—and the fact that it makes the suburbs sound anything but utopian—the Boys are themselves suggesting a pun, albeit a far darker, more ironic one: a dystopic pun, so to speak."
Of course, @Sally_Harper gets to comment first: I’m rating the video version because the other one doesn’t have the best bit – the euphoric saxophone/ “Run with THE DOGS TONIGHT” explosion at the end. I would live in that section if I could. I lose my shit to it every. Single. Time I listen to the track, and I listen to it quite a lot as the rest of it is also quite excellent, especially the piano riff, so really I had to give it my 11!
@Future Lover: The Video Mix is THE SHIT. The 7'' is too short, The Full Horror drags, the album version is barely worth a mention. Talk about the trasformative powers of remixing!
@Mikey1701: The album version feels strangely empty and undeserving of being 5 minutes long. Thank goodness for it’s single edit- which is what I rated. Being a full minute shorter and with beefier production, which adds a sense of urgency to the production. The middle 8 is one of the best from the 80s, which is high praise indeed. Bop.
@Jóga: Both the single and album version deserve a high mark.
@One Stop Candy Shop: Sad euphoria anthem. I quite like that Full Horror mix.
@TrendyMüller: I was devouring J.G. Ballard books around the time of release and suddenly I could add PSB to the music-to-read-Ballard-to-list, which was kind of unlikely. The drum programming is IMMENSE and the whole instrumental breakdown/coda is just amazing. [I am SURE Neil would approve of that first sentence.]
@DominoDancing: It's a testament to the songwriting quality and the cohesiveness of the music and the lyrics that I love this song so much, even though it does something I usually hate: switching from a minor to a major key for the chorus. So often that just destroys the mood, but here it works quite well. It certainly helps that the hook is one of the strongest in their catalogue. "I only wanted something else to do but hang around" is a fucking great lyric. [One of the few things I like about it.]
@Bleu Noir: see also Opportunities, never loved it – 4! drags a bit (mixes much better)
@KingBruno: This sounds very irregular, but I absolutely love that aspect!
@ohnoitisnathan: Not really a fan of this one, sorry.
@Peer_Gynt10: my favourite of their early singles
@Heaven on Earth: I adore the instrumental for the album version.
and finally
@Ray: my lowest score (5) is now gone, and from now on it's between (one) 7 and, well, 11.
Performance version:
Pandemonium version:
The Full Horror:
And the real horror, unplugged version:
I'm sick as a dog today, but in case I manage to post another one, another 11 is going to fall. (But they all fall, even Jack the Lad.) (I'll see myself out.)
[Sorry about the quality. It's gorgeously printed in Catalogue, if that helps. I found a lot of HQ scans of the other picture where Chris looks sideways, helpfully.]
18. Suburbia
8.4819444444
AU #9 BE #1 FIN #13 FRA #64 GER #2 IRL #3 ITA #18 NLD #3 NZ #5 POL (Radio 3) #1 SPA #2 SWE #6 SWI #3 UK #8 US Hot 100 #70 US Dance #36 US Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Dance Chart #17
Highest score: 11 (@Sally_Harper), 10x10 (@Farnaby, @RaggedTiger, @Jóga, @etienne, @SmashHitter, @DominoDancing, @slurmjunkie, @etcetera, @KingBruno, @Peer_Gynt10), 9.9 (@Future Lover)
Lowest score: ZERO (@Sweet Music)
Neil: We slag off suburbia but we both come from suburbia and more or less live in it.
Chris Heath: And so does that devalue the sincerity of what you do?
Neil: No. 'Suburbia' is true anyway. One of the things about being middle-class is to know that you're thoroughly imperfect. Therefore you don't think your football team is the best in the world, you don't want to command an army. It's to be obsessed by your own conscience. If Janet [Street-Porter] had a child and I hd a child she would be the one to send it to Eton, not me.
*
Neil: I said that I couldn't go it alone, there are two of us. Tom [Watkins] didn't believe that Chris did anything in the group. I said, 'Tom, we've just written a song called "Suburbia", for instance, where Chris wrote all the music.' He didn't believe me. [...] 'Everyone knows Chris doesn't do anything – and don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about.'
*
'Suburbia' was the first PSB single with inner and outer sleeves. The gatefold sleeve has a white band containing the credits, purposefully echoing a film poster (the credit for Penelope Spheeris's film Suburbia, an inspiration for the song, was added to imply that the release had a relationship to the movie). Neil recalls that Chris had bought his t-shirt and cap, then tried on the Issey Miyake glasses. 'They were very expensive,' he says, 'but I said they'd look great in a photo session'. Neil's sunglasses were blacked-in with tape so as not to reflect the photographer's lights. [...] Mark Farrow: 'I just thought that that picture of Chris with those glasses and that t-shirt on was one of the best photographs I've ever seen. It's everything about Pet Shop Boys summed up to me in a photo. In my mind at that time Chris was the logo, if you like, the way Chris looked was the logo of the Pet Shop Boys.'
Ray: for once, this is a note copied from Geowayne: "The word "suburbia" dates back in English at least to the nineteenth century (and probably even earlier), though its roots are in Latin. The lyrics seem to imply that it comes from a blending of the words "suburb" and "utopia," though this may be nothing more than a bit of wordplay on Neil's part. (He says, "Suburbia—where the suburbs met utopia.") But "suburbia" is actually one of several plural forms of the ancient Latin word suburbium ("under city"), which meant pretty much what the word "suburb" means today: the outlying area surrounding the "city proper." So it in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with "utopia," a word coined from Greek roots (οὐτόπος, meaning "no place") by Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, in which he described a fictional ideal society on an imaginary island in the Atlantic Ocean. Because it was pronounced exactly the same as another Greek derivative meaning "good place" (εὖτόπος, or eutopia), the word utopia was, in effect, a pun on More's part. Given the song lyric's stated association of "suburb" and "utopia"—and the fact that it makes the suburbs sound anything but utopian—the Boys are themselves suggesting a pun, albeit a far darker, more ironic one: a dystopic pun, so to speak."
Of course, @Sally_Harper gets to comment first: I’m rating the video version because the other one doesn’t have the best bit – the euphoric saxophone/ “Run with THE DOGS TONIGHT” explosion at the end. I would live in that section if I could. I lose my shit to it every. Single. Time I listen to the track, and I listen to it quite a lot as the rest of it is also quite excellent, especially the piano riff, so really I had to give it my 11!
@Future Lover: The Video Mix is THE SHIT. The 7'' is too short, The Full Horror drags, the album version is barely worth a mention. Talk about the trasformative powers of remixing!
@Mikey1701: The album version feels strangely empty and undeserving of being 5 minutes long. Thank goodness for it’s single edit- which is what I rated. Being a full minute shorter and with beefier production, which adds a sense of urgency to the production. The middle 8 is one of the best from the 80s, which is high praise indeed. Bop.
@Jóga: Both the single and album version deserve a high mark.
@One Stop Candy Shop: Sad euphoria anthem. I quite like that Full Horror mix.
@TrendyMüller: I was devouring J.G. Ballard books around the time of release and suddenly I could add PSB to the music-to-read-Ballard-to-list, which was kind of unlikely. The drum programming is IMMENSE and the whole instrumental breakdown/coda is just amazing. [I am SURE Neil would approve of that first sentence.]
@DominoDancing: It's a testament to the songwriting quality and the cohesiveness of the music and the lyrics that I love this song so much, even though it does something I usually hate: switching from a minor to a major key for the chorus. So often that just destroys the mood, but here it works quite well. It certainly helps that the hook is one of the strongest in their catalogue. "I only wanted something else to do but hang around" is a fucking great lyric. [One of the few things I like about it.]
@Bleu Noir: see also Opportunities, never loved it – 4! drags a bit (mixes much better)
@KingBruno: This sounds very irregular, but I absolutely love that aspect!
@ohnoitisnathan: Not really a fan of this one, sorry.
@Peer_Gynt10: my favourite of their early singles
@Heaven on Earth: I adore the instrumental for the album version.
and finally
@Ray: my lowest score (5) is now gone, and from now on it's between (one) 7 and, well, 11.
Performance version:
Pandemonium version:
The Full Horror:
And the real horror, unplugged version:
I'm sick as a dog today, but in case I manage to post another one, another 11 is going to fall. (But they all fall, even Jack the Lad.) (I'll see myself out.)
