Let's just say I am glad they didn't put Jealousy on Actually in place of King's Cross.
Pet Shop Boys Rate. Part 1: 1985-1991. Winner.
- Thread starter Ray
- Start date
I tend to not like songs very much that have a strong instrumental melody that is then sung in the same melody OVER the instrumental. Jealousy does that. It also sounds like a Musical number and that´s always a big "-" for me.
They/them, he/him
I’m dreading your opinions on Results!
Do we rate Results as well? Let´s just say I like a about a third of it.
I could write the story of my teenage years soundtracked by the Pet Shop Boys, and Jealousy is sitting my A Levels. (Where The Streets etc is revising, DJ Culture is going off to university, fact fans).
I'm by no means the biggest fan of sedate-PSB, that said I'm a sucker for tastefully deployed strings and I think they get things just right here. An easy 10.
I'm by no means the biggest fan of sedate-PSB, that said I'm a sucker for tastefully deployed strings and I think they get things just right here. An easy 10.
I seem to remember Ray said that if the rates for their own albums go well/are fun enough, another round for things like Results and Reputation (the one by the non-horrible person) would be a possibility.
Part 2: Very-PopArt
Part 3: Everything after with b-sides optional because that will be 500 songs or so
Part 4: Collaborations (if there's interest)
#16 will go soon, and I'll try to kick out #15 as well (no promises though) to get rid of all songs whose average can be rounded to 8.49.
Part 3: Everything after with b-sides optional because that will be 500 songs or so
Part 4: Collaborations (if there's interest)
Oh, the quotes one can collect from this thread...
#16 will go soon, and I'll try to kick out #15 as well (no promises though) to get rid of all songs whose average can be rounded to 8.49.
Exactly the same as my life during that period (except I was sitting Highers rather than A-Levels) ...
Jealousy has a quiet beauty and simplicity that just works ... The bassline gives away that this was one of their earlier works, and it really should have ended Please ... The 2nd cd artwork is very lazy and I'm never a fan of a live version of anything appearing on a single ...
16.
really gorgeous
drones on a bit
it’s simply too long
[Wait for the extended and extended extended mix at the end of the post]
16. This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave
8.4916666667
Behaviour album highlight
Highest score: 11x2 (@DominoDancing, @slurmjunkie), 10x8 (@Heaven on Earth, @etcetera, @chris4862, @etienne, @JakeMagnus, @Jóga, @RaggedTiger, @Farnaby)
Lowest score: 6 (@Filler, @CorgiCorgiCorgi, @idratherjack, @Mikey1701)
Neil: This is about a dream, which I've had several times, that I'm back at school in the sixth form block doing an exam and I think (very alarmed) 'How has this happened? What's happened?' and I get told to get on with what I'm doing. And also we kind of tied it in with Eastern Europe. Schools are kind of authoritarian places with strange rituals and I just imagined now that dreaming you were back in a communist state would be as bizarre as being back in your school days. The words were written quite recently but the music was written a long time ago when we thought we were going to be asked to do the theme for the James Bond film, The Living Daylights. Johnny Marr plays on it: some feedback guitar and some rhythm guitar.
Chris: There's a vocoder line – like in 'One Of The Crowd" – with me saying "everybody" then "everybody jump to attention". That's me.
Neil: It was originally written in the studio in Wandsworth in 1986. As a musical exercise we decided to write something that sounded, in our opinion, like a James Bond theme. That's why you have the guitar at the start, which is a Stratocaster sample I'm playing. It has my trademark pitch-bend at the end. I love twang. We never heard anything from the James Bond people – a-ha did the theme in the end.
Chris: But that's why 'This must be the place...' sounds so filmic.
Neil: It's a bit like a verbal version of one of those Escher drawings that goes round and you can't work out how you got there. You wonder where you are and you realise you're in the place you couldn't wait to get out of. The title is a play on time – the first part present tense, the second past tense. But I did wait years to leave school. I absolutely bloody hated it. [...] I'm also getting revenge on my school, St Cuthbert's, for slagging me off in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle when 'It's A Sin' came out. There was a front page story about how I'd defamed the school and they were quite hurtful about me, and had anonymous quotes from teachers at the school.
Chris: The rhythm was from 'Jack Your Body'.
Neil: At the end of the middle bit, after the guitar solo, you can hear a choir chant 'Lenin' at 3:24, which is from Shostakovitch's Second Symphony.
Ray: Oh, give me a fucking break, Neil.
Ray: I fell in love with this watching the Performance performance. How dull and grey it was; exactly how I remembered school. I hated mine as well, and I did wait years to leave. When people talk about their youth and get all nostalgic I think they're insane. I would pay a lot of money never to be a teenager again (I think I might just about achieve that for free). School was the second worst period of my life, and it did last years. When this song came out I was still stuck at school, but it wasn't until I got a pirated copy of Performance that it occurred to me what this song was about; I still hardly spoke any English.
The comment worth 11 points:
@DominoDancing: My 11! While It's A Sin perfectly displayed the rage Neil must have felt in retrospect about aspects of his childhood and youth, this embodies so perfectly how living through it must have felt like. That hopeless "And how/How long?" after the second chorus gets me every time. And I'm glad they got Badalamenti back to score a track I actually really love.
I'm sure @slurmjunkie will give us her comment soon as well – looking forward.
@Mikey1701: This is definitely a step up from Being Boring, with a bit more ‘oomph’ about it- but just like its predecessor, it’s simply too long. In its defence, the production is lovely, with some genuinely great flourishes here and there. Ultimately, if this was 4:30 long, I’d have given it a 7. [I am surprised by how many 6s this song got.]
@One Stop Candy Shop: This must be the song I waited years to hear. It's really gorgeous.
@Jóga: Haven't we all been there? Not in a Christian nun school, but wanting to leave.
@ohnoitisnathan: I don't like how he says "yars". [That's very specific criticism.]
@Peer_Gynt10: the production foreshadows ‘The Crying Game’, which, of course, is a good thing.
@Bleu Noir: drones on a bit but I get it.
@TrendyMüller: I just love the rhythm and the sense of menace. Haven´t we all dreamt being back in school? What a nightmare! Could be Bond Theme and should have been the album opener. [I checked and it works as album opener. I'm just more used to 'Being Boring', I guess.]
@Sally_Harper: I have no idea what the instrument in the chorus is but I love it. It makes the song. [Is that the Stratocaster sample?]
Everybody, ev-everybody:
Everybody, everybody, ev-everybody: (Jealousy extended mix)
Everybody, everybody, everybody, ev-everybody (Japanese fully extended mix)
One of the Living Daylights demoes:
Performance performance:
Out of remaining 15, two songs do not have any 11s.
really gorgeous
drones on a bit
it’s simply too long
[Wait for the extended and extended extended mix at the end of the post]
16. This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave
8.4916666667
Behaviour album highlight
Highest score: 11x2 (@DominoDancing, @slurmjunkie), 10x8 (@Heaven on Earth, @etcetera, @chris4862, @etienne, @JakeMagnus, @Jóga, @RaggedTiger, @Farnaby)
Lowest score: 6 (@Filler, @CorgiCorgiCorgi, @idratherjack, @Mikey1701)
Neil: This is about a dream, which I've had several times, that I'm back at school in the sixth form block doing an exam and I think (very alarmed) 'How has this happened? What's happened?' and I get told to get on with what I'm doing. And also we kind of tied it in with Eastern Europe. Schools are kind of authoritarian places with strange rituals and I just imagined now that dreaming you were back in a communist state would be as bizarre as being back in your school days. The words were written quite recently but the music was written a long time ago when we thought we were going to be asked to do the theme for the James Bond film, The Living Daylights. Johnny Marr plays on it: some feedback guitar and some rhythm guitar.
Chris: There's a vocoder line – like in 'One Of The Crowd" – with me saying "everybody" then "everybody jump to attention". That's me.
Neil: It was originally written in the studio in Wandsworth in 1986. As a musical exercise we decided to write something that sounded, in our opinion, like a James Bond theme. That's why you have the guitar at the start, which is a Stratocaster sample I'm playing. It has my trademark pitch-bend at the end. I love twang. We never heard anything from the James Bond people – a-ha did the theme in the end.
Chris: But that's why 'This must be the place...' sounds so filmic.
Neil: It's a bit like a verbal version of one of those Escher drawings that goes round and you can't work out how you got there. You wonder where you are and you realise you're in the place you couldn't wait to get out of. The title is a play on time – the first part present tense, the second past tense. But I did wait years to leave school. I absolutely bloody hated it. [...] I'm also getting revenge on my school, St Cuthbert's, for slagging me off in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle when 'It's A Sin' came out. There was a front page story about how I'd defamed the school and they were quite hurtful about me, and had anonymous quotes from teachers at the school.
Chris: The rhythm was from 'Jack Your Body'.
Neil: At the end of the middle bit, after the guitar solo, you can hear a choir chant 'Lenin' at 3:24, which is from Shostakovitch's Second Symphony.
Ray: Oh, give me a fucking break, Neil.
Ray: I fell in love with this watching the Performance performance. How dull and grey it was; exactly how I remembered school. I hated mine as well, and I did wait years to leave. When people talk about their youth and get all nostalgic I think they're insane. I would pay a lot of money never to be a teenager again (I think I might just about achieve that for free). School was the second worst period of my life, and it did last years. When this song came out I was still stuck at school, but it wasn't until I got a pirated copy of Performance that it occurred to me what this song was about; I still hardly spoke any English.
The comment worth 11 points:
@DominoDancing: My 11! While It's A Sin perfectly displayed the rage Neil must have felt in retrospect about aspects of his childhood and youth, this embodies so perfectly how living through it must have felt like. That hopeless "And how/How long?" after the second chorus gets me every time. And I'm glad they got Badalamenti back to score a track I actually really love.
I'm sure @slurmjunkie will give us her comment soon as well – looking forward.
@Mikey1701: This is definitely a step up from Being Boring, with a bit more ‘oomph’ about it- but just like its predecessor, it’s simply too long. In its defence, the production is lovely, with some genuinely great flourishes here and there. Ultimately, if this was 4:30 long, I’d have given it a 7. [I am surprised by how many 6s this song got.]
@One Stop Candy Shop: This must be the song I waited years to hear. It's really gorgeous.
@Jóga: Haven't we all been there? Not in a Christian nun school, but wanting to leave.
@ohnoitisnathan: I don't like how he says "yars". [That's very specific criticism.]
@Peer_Gynt10: the production foreshadows ‘The Crying Game’, which, of course, is a good thing.
@Bleu Noir: drones on a bit but I get it.
@TrendyMüller: I just love the rhythm and the sense of menace. Haven´t we all dreamt being back in school? What a nightmare! Could be Bond Theme and should have been the album opener. [I checked and it works as album opener. I'm just more used to 'Being Boring', I guess.]
@Sally_Harper: I have no idea what the instrument in the chorus is but I love it. It makes the song. [Is that the Stratocaster sample?]
Everybody, ev-everybody:
Everybody, everybody, ev-everybody: (Jealousy extended mix)
Everybody, everybody, everybody, ev-everybody (Japanese fully extended mix)
One of the Living Daylights demoes:
Performance performance:
Out of remaining 15, two songs do not have any 11s.
D
Deleted member 16293
This Must Be The Elimination I Waited Weeks To Read.
Not really, it’s a gorgeous song and it’s top-20 worthy.
And Jealousy could’ve lasted a tiny bit longer. It’s epic.
Not really, it’s a gorgeous song and it’s top-20 worthy.
And Jealousy could’ve lasted a tiny bit longer. It’s epic.
I can't wait for all of you to slowly die in the barren wasteland of the nuclear holocaust.
But enough about Erasure's discography rate.
Since this seems to be the time to post controversial opinions, I have one too:
I DON`T LIKE PERFORMANCE!
I DON`T LIKE PERFORMANCE!
You bitch
YOU bitch
I really came to see Perfomace under very strange cirmumstances:
I was doing an internship at a radio-station and we had a daily section in the program called "flea market". Listeners could phone in if they had to give things away they didn´t need anymore. I was working the shift on my birthday and I was taking the phone calls, sorted them out and decided which ones would go "on air".
So a girl called in and said she had to a ticket for the Pet Shop Boys to give away for the show they were performing that evening. In no-time I decided to give myself a birthday present and claimed the ticket for myself.
It then turned out that the girl was calling from the hospital! Now, I didn´t expect this and I immediately felt bad about it. However, I bought a bunch of flowers and went to see her.
She was totally nice but sad, said she was a huge PSB fan and told me she had no idea why she was hospitalized.
*gulp*
So I went to see the show, didn´t like it very much, went back to the hospital the next day to tell the girl that she didn´t miss much, but she was gone!
To this day I have no idea, what has happened to her, but I convince myself that she had been sent home.
I was doing an internship at a radio-station and we had a daily section in the program called "flea market". Listeners could phone in if they had to give things away they didn´t need anymore. I was working the shift on my birthday and I was taking the phone calls, sorted them out and decided which ones would go "on air".
So a girl called in and said she had to a ticket for the Pet Shop Boys to give away for the show they were performing that evening. In no-time I decided to give myself a birthday present and claimed the ticket for myself.
It then turned out that the girl was calling from the hospital! Now, I didn´t expect this and I immediately felt bad about it. However, I bought a bunch of flowers and went to see her.
She was totally nice but sad, said she was a huge PSB fan and told me she had no idea why she was hospitalized.
*gulp*
So I went to see the show, didn´t like it very much, went back to the hospital the next day to tell the girl that she didn´t miss much, but she was gone!
To this day I have no idea, what has happened to her, but I convince myself that she had been sent home.
I agree ... like the majority of middling PSB songs it’s a solid 7, but it just goes on and on without reaching any kind of high or emotional response ...
To rate higher than My October Symphony is just a nonsense (and that’s me applying group logic rather than my personal favourites) …