Love etc. midweeks.

[Patrick Bateman]

And could you imagine this day? After "shedloads" of PR, marketing, publicity, a Brit award, etc far beyond the other band's, and PSB still manage to not crack the top 20? Disaster.

Yes s t e p h a n o, because Love etc. is on heavy rotation on Radio 1, isn't it? Groups like PSB simply can't compete in the singles market these days what with only 37% of their sales coming from downloads. Still Erasure should be appealing to the yoof market when the bakery fairy album comes out.

[Flaffer]

Erasure should be appealing to the yoof market when the bakery fairy album comes out.

well, you cannot beat a bit of poof pastry

[homer1972]

I blame Bruno Brookes, it's all his fault.

[Syncratic]

I blame Stephano. He's single handedly doing all the negative PR for Erasure. Way to go!

[pulse]

And could you imagine this day? After "shedloads" of PR, marketing, publicity, a Brit award, etc far beyond the other band's, and PSB still manage to not crack the top 20? Disaster.

Yes s t e p h a n o, because Love etc. is on heavy rotation on Radio 1, isn't it? Groups like PSB simply can't compete in the singles market these days what with only 37% of their sales coming from downloads. Still Erasure should be appealing to the yoof market when the bakery fairy album comes out.

No, "Love, Etc" wouldn't get airplay on Radio 1, but perhaps you should ask Skyhigh to restate his comments about the incredible (shedloads) amount of publicity PSB has been getting. Resultantly, this is working itself into a massive commercial disaster.

You know, you can't have your cake and eat it. It's enough to watch you fall into apologist mode. Once again, one person says something, then another discredits him accidentally by default of defence. Something doesn't sell, and distribution problems are to blame... or it's a sales-heavy week... or it was released with too much competition... or digital sales are now too high... or Satanic anti-PSB rabbits are keeping the hardcore fanbase from shopping... etc.

The bottom line is that a band with so much PR, marketing, the Brit fireworks, advertising, print/web articles, magazine covers, airplay (A-listed on the UK's biggest radio station) et al should (and will) crack the top 20. It doesn't make sense. I'd hate to be Undertaker right now, thinking this potential relative flop may result in Bob the Weatherman producing the next PSB album. Who cares where it will chart!? It's a good song and the album is better than any since the mid 90's. Chillax.

You guys are one big circus - a two-ring circus, at that. Instead of enjoying the band's new art, some of you are acting like stock traders running around the stock market like heads with their chickens cut off.

[pulse]

I blame Stephano. He's single handedly doing all the negative PR for Erasure. Way to go!

Don't tell me that you're obsessed with me and Erasure as well... how disappointing that PSB have a "return-to-form" album and all some of you have standing at the forefront of your minds are band you supposedly don't like. It's so sad seeing Erasure's name pop up so often on this forum, even without provocation.

It actually speaks volumes.

[patrick]

Resultantly, this is working itself into a massive commercial disaster.

Anyone who seriously expects a Pet Shop Boys single to chart within the Top 20 in the download age is an idiot so woefully ignorant of the way the contemporary music market works the only suitable response is ritual suicide.

Every piece of marketing across the past month is pointed at shifting the album.

[pulse]

Every piece of marketing across the past month is pointed at shifting the album.

Correct, a lot of it is, but the single is a cog in that machine.

I'm absolutely sure that the album will be a success, in comparison.

[patrick]

I'm absolutely sure that the album will be a success, in comparison.

Please don't ever stop playing the jester.

[pulse]

I'm absolutely sure that the album will be a success, in comparison.

Please don't ever stop playing the jester.

Please don't ever stop playing the paranoid schizophrenic.

[patrick]

Please don't ever stop playing the paranoid schizophrenic.

There's no need for a backhanded "in comparison." We all know the album is going to perform, and the single is doing incredibly in the midweeks for a group that has the physical:digital ratio this one does and widespread distribution problems to boot.

We all know you love Erasure, but you only make yourself look like an idiot when you made these sort of snide attacks on a group that by any objective measure is going through a rather astonishing time after having been around for a quarter century. To cast Love etc as a disaster is quite simply to be an ignorant tool. It isn't 2005 anymore. Top 20 would be an incredible achievement in context.

[pulse]

There's no need for a backhanded "in comparison." We all know the album is going to perform, and the single is doing incredibly in the midweeks for a group that has the physical:digital ratio this one does and widespread distribution problems to boot.

We all know you love Erasure, but you only make yourself look like an idiot when you made these sort of snide attacks on a group that by any objective measure is going through a rather astonishing time after having been around for a quarter century. To cast Love etc as a disaster is quite simply to be an ignorant tool. It isn't 2005 anymore. Top 20 would be an incredible achievement in context.

Please don't ever stop playing the paranoid schizophrenic.

[Minimalizm]

It could be worse, they could be charting outside the top 20, as the last 3 Erasure singles have.

And could you imagine this day? After "shedloads" of PR, marketing, publicity, a Brit award, etc far beyond the other band's, and PSB still manage to not crack the top 20? Disaster.

I guess that you see it Top 200 instead of Top 20...Wasn't the latest Erasure single out of Top 200, the disaster in the real sense of the word, so that your mind may be a little bit confused about what a disaster is and what a disaster is not?

So publicity machine leads to outside top 20
No publicity machine leads to outside top 200

I can feel your pride, Stephano.

[No Muscle Mary]

Stephano, don't you know that people in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones?

[Martin W]

It'd be interesting to see the first week sales figures of Love etc and compare them to I'm With Stupid. That would really tell us how much of an influence the Brits/PSB promotion has had. If they're roughly the same, then Joe Public hasn't been influenced very much at all... or is waiting for Yes to be released.