Pet Shop Boys Community

Undertaker wrote:A fantastic DVD. One of the best things i've ever seen.

The extra's is ace just for their first ever t.v performance. It's worth buying just for that. Right near the end, Neil looks like he's had some sort of stroke, coming out with crazy noises.Whoever told them to change their appearance on stage, gave them the best advice ever. It's so comical.

That West End Girls performance is tragically hilarious. I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing.

E-Mail Vampire wrote:Haven't watched the documentary yet as I only really brought for the videos since PopArt. I did notice that the booklet omits Flamboyant...luckily it is on there.

Cool. That was going to be my question. "Why no Flamboyant !"

Drico One wrote:After Very, the big set-piece events of their story revolve around collaborations and experiments rather than on big hit singles or albums. Indeed, I get the distinct impression that each studio album merely acts as the excuse that allows them to explore different creative impulses to take them further away from the pop epicentre. Their world has become more expansive and disjointed while simultaneously less focused.

The fact that PSB were commercially less successful after 1994, doesn't mean that their albums serves as 'excuse' only. Bilingual and Nightlife were expensive productions and were well-promoted with tours, etc.

Besides that, Nightlife and Bilingual simply feature too many moments of sheer brilliance to be called 'excuses'. I only mention Discoteca, It Always Comes As A Surprise, A Red Letter Day, The Survivors, Before, To Step Aside, For Your Own Good, Closer To Heaven, Happiness Is An Option, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk, Boy Strange and Footsteps....

Please, any info about spanish subtitles on the PAL or NTSC release??

don't think so Lorenzo! English only!

Sorry Gardner and congrats Oznerol: On my copy there's subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch and Portuguese. The PAL one, that is.

dVTB wrote: The fact that PSB were commercially less successful after 1994, doesn't mean that their albums serves as 'excuse' only.

I didn't say that they did. I said that I get the distinct impression that that is what they are now being reduced to as few people are buying their records and PSBs now seem to get more kicks from obscure collaborations and creative adventures. More effort now seems to go into musicals and movie scoring than into pop records.

Drico.

E-Mail Vampire wrote:Does anyones else's dvd freeze a bit when Chris is talking about Being Boring being one of his fav PSB singles but being on of the lowest charting?

Yes, my copy also "froze up" a bit around that time, although I'm not sure it's at exactly the same place as you describe. I noticed it right at the transition from "Track 10" to "Track 11." Chris "stops" for a split second and then the frame seems to "jump" as if it's skipping a second or two. Much to my chagrin, it skips just as I'm starting to speak at one point, and you miss a word or two of mine.

Fortunately, if you advance or step back to the start of Track 11, that skipping doesn't seem to occur. It only happens if you let the DVD run its normal path, so to speak, from 10 to 11.

A common flaw in the DVD, perhaps?

It's not the layer change?

I am getting a bit sick of defective PSB products.

There seems to have been a few lately.

I got the DVD today and really enjoyed the documentary, but how come all the clips from the songs aren't subtitled? You'll have Neil, Chris or someone else talking and the subtitles are fine, but as soon as a clip of a song/video is played the subtitles stop, why is this? I get the formentioned error on my copy when Chris is talking about the "Being Boring" chart position, it jumps for 1 second and then goes into the next bit. However, I played the same part on my PC and it didn't happen, so I guess it must be my DVD player as this happens with a lot of DVD's, so maybe it's the layer changing thing, but it's not really a major hassle anyway. I really enjoyed all of Wayne's Studer's bits, I could listen to him talk all day as he really is an authority on PSB, and his website is great too by the way. Sadly, the only bit I think that was a bit pants was about "Closer To Heaven", as I've never seen it 'live', but from what I saw on this I'm not too bothered, as it seemed a little bit cheesy and the cast just don't perform the songs as well as PSB do! I mean, "Friendly Fire" is a great song when Neil sings it, but I don't get the same feeling when Frances Barber (Billie Trix) sings it, and "Shameless" is far better with Neil singing. Although, I do like Paul Keating's (Straight Dave) version of "Positive Role Model" on the cast recording album. It's just that I prefer PSB to do these songs themselves...

The Extras are superb, and it's great to have all the videos from "Miracles" right upto "Numb", and "Go West" ('Live' at the '94 Brit Awards) was great to see again, as I've not seen it since 1994, when it was broadcast on TV. So, all in all a really great DVD and definitely recommended by me!

DJ Fairborne wrote:Sadly, the only bit I think that was a bit pants was about "Closer To Heaven", as I've never seen it 'live', but from what I saw on this I'm not too bothered, as it seemed a little bit cheesy and the cast just don't perform the songs as well as PSB do! I mean, "Friendly Fire" is a great song when Neil sings it, but I don't get the same feeling when Frances Barber (Billie Trix) sings it, and "Shameless" is far better with Neil singing.

That's the consequence of not having seen it live. You're missing the whole atmosphere. Having seen it twice, I thought it was a good musical with fantastic songs. Hearing FF by Frances now still brings back that feeling from 2001.

A Red Letter Day

Happiness Is An Option

Footsteps

Examples of where PSB quality threshold dipped below the required standard. IMO.

I've just re-watched the "A Life In Pop" documentary, and I'm sure there's a bit missing from the Channel 4 broadcasted version, where Matt Lucas & David Walliams talk about Chris Lowe being a big fan of Arsenal, but this bit isn't on the DVD version, how come? Also, according to Wayne Studer's website, there's a bit of him that was cut out of the DVD version, but was also in the broadcast version. So, are these possibly deleted scenes? Maybe, when the finished full-length DVD version was made, they had a few scenes left over and so stuck them in the shorter Channel 4 version. Also, the Channel 4 version was subtitled and did subtitle any song clips, whereas the DVD version doesn't subtitle any clips of songs for some strange reason.

So, will the shorter broadcasted version of "A Life In Pop" ever be released then? Or maybe Channel 4 will reshow it soon? Strange how they cut these 2 scenes (and maybe there's more?) from the full-length DVD version as it wouldn't have made it too much longer, only another minute or 2, so why cut it out? Weird hey?...

Re Closer to Heaven, the music was dead good live. Close your eyes and it's just like a PSB gig. Problem is the voice was missing, as of course F Barber etc. are not a patch on Neil's voice. Shame.

Let's hope the 'ballet' is an improvement shall we...

Geowayne, I really enjoyed your comments in the chapter "pop or rock". A very good analysis. Especially when you talk about Where the streets have no name.