Hope you all enjoy..
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Meeting for lunch are the Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, and Nathan Gregory Wilkins, an East London-based DJ from Birmingham. The original idea was they would discuss the similarities between the latest crop of young bands and the Eighties groups these bands are so obviously emulating, but it turns out that no one's very interested in that subject.
Neil claims not to know much about them anyway, although you suspect this is modesty on his part, because he then says that Black Kids remind him of bands that played Danceteria in the early eighties - "Dance bands that wanted to play rock. The obvious example being Gang Of Four" - a band he has "issues" with (ie he didnt like). On the other hand he think that MGMT are interesting; and it helps that they are sexy and American.
Instead the conversation turns to Xenomania, the pop team who have produced the Pet Shop Boys forthcoming album. Given the unapologetically commercial nature of Xenomania's previous output - they worked with Sugababes, Kylie, Steps and most notably of all, Girls Aloud - this collaboration has raised a few sceptical eyebrows.
NEIL : We considered approaching Xenomania for the last album, Fundamental. Then we read that New Order were working with them.
CHRIS : Damn !
NEIL : There's always been this synchronicity between the record collections of Bernard Sumner and the Pet Shop Boys, right from the word go. People have often thought mistakenly that we were inluenced by "Blue Monday" but actually Bernard was just influenced by the same records we were. Eurobeat, Italodisco, ermergin New York hip hop... So we thought damn, can't believe it he's already got there. So we did that with Trevor Horn. But the tracks we started writing this year, most of them were pop, so we thought it was worth approaching Xenomania.
NATHAN : You'd not met them before ?
NEIL : No. We really didn't know that much about them. I very much liked the single "Biology" by Girls Aloud. I think that was an amazing single. It's funny 'cause it's nothing like anything Xenomania or Girls Aloud have ever done. It exists in its own world. It's quite sixties isn't it ? Like so much of pop now.
NATHAN : You never know what Xenomania are going to do next. Which is unique for a production house. They don't have a formula.
NEIL : No they don't. They're based out in Kent - that's quite important because it's a world of it's own. It reminds me of Smash Hits (Neil was the pop mag's best writer in the early Eighties). We used to be over the road from failing circulations. We had an article about New York hip hop before NME did. We used to lean out of the window to watch Nick Kent walking down the street. Secretly of course we were all thrilled to see him. We used to HATE Number One Magazine. We felt we got it, and those people didn't really get it. Well, Xenomania feels like that. Personally, I could disappear into a room upstairs at Xenomania and become part of the factory writing songs for Girls Aloud. I'd be quite happy, actually
CHRIS : It'd be a lot of fun !
NATHAN : Brian Higgins who set up Xenomania, his first success was "Believe" by Cher, wasn't it ?
CHRIS : We didn't know that when we first met him ! We discovered that. So impressed. "You wrote that ?!"
NATHAN : You guys obviously worked with Dusty and Liza. And they brought Cher to a new audience...
NEIL : We were asked to produce that Cher album. In the wake of Liza and Dusty... To be honest, there were almost none of that generation who we weren't asked to produce.
NATHAN : Were there any that you didn't do that you would have liked to ?
NEIL : No. That's why we didn't do them. We did Liza because we were offered it and it was an insane thing to do. She had no pop career, so it was about doing somethin new with her. And Dusty... we approached Dusty because we had a song that was right for her. But we didn't think, oh which middle-aed woman shall we work with next?
NATHAN : Results (their 1989 album with Minelli) is a great album. That version of "Rent" brings tears to my eyes.
NEIL : I went to see her in concert the other week actually. She was amazing. I think she's one of those performers who gets more interesting as she gets older, because she had such a history.
NATHAN : She's like the last link with that golden age of Hollywood.
NEIL : She totally is. We've met all sorts of people who are into Liza Minelli. Like Frank Sinatra. But also once I went with her to a dress rehersal of some show in London and it was all these ancient musical theatre and cinema stars. And they all knew Liza's mother so they all went. It was like my parent's generation.
CHRIS : Who was the bloke who said "Its a gas to be here!"?
NEIL : Ben Vereen (71 year old actor and Broadway veteran).
CHRIS : Ben Vereen! I love the way that generation talk. They say "cats" and things like that.
NEIL : I love hearing vintage slang. I met Noel Coward's boyfriend when we did the Noel Coward record, and he and Coward's secretary called each oher duckie ! (Finds this hilarious) And she wore a hair net !
NATHAN : The whole Sixties thing happening in pop at the moment which feels like it's come out of nowhere.
NEIL : It's come out of Amy Winehouse really.
CHRIS : (Dissapproving) It's come out of the Brits school. I blame the old teachers who are stuck in the Sixties.
NATHAN : But the early Girls Aloud stuff reminded me of Sixties bubblegum pop, and back then Amy Winehouse... well, her early stuff was more like jazz pop. I think it's Xenomania who brought the Sixties sound back to the pop arena. And now you've got Duffy. You go to Tesco's and all the top albums are essentially Sixties.
NEIL : Well the first time I heard Amy Winehouse's "Back To Black" album. I thought it sounded like Dustys first album. "Rehab" and "Mocking Bird" have got a similar kind of rhythm track. This Sixties thing is interesting 'cause no one had done the Sixties - the girl group Sixties, which is what that is - since the Sixties.
NATHAN : Except Tracey Ullman in the Eighties. Sorry to be pedantic !
CHRIS : Who was it it with the beehive who sang "Just What I've Always Wanted"?
NEIL : Mari Wilson. Actually she was great ! I liked her. We did an article once for Smash Hits Year Book 1983 about pop stars being something they've always wanted to be. Mari Wilson wanted to be Bet Lynch. So she and our photographer Eric Wilson drove up to Granada Studios and photographed her on the set of the Rovers Return. And of course all the cast were wandering around... She did "Cry Me A River".
CHRIS : Not Justin Timberlake's version.
NEIL : We keep having a discussion with Brian Higgins about... I maintain it's WEAK to write a new song called "Cry Me A River" when there's already a famous one. But he says it doesnt matter 'cause it's sincere.
