Q - June '06

Message

! · #1 Post by ! » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 5:53 pm

The 50 Essential Tracks To Download This Month
38 - Integral - A song about the ID cards fiasco that you can shake a leg to? It could only be Messrs Tennant and Lowe, back on top form with their new album.

HMV Advert
The elder statesmen of synth-pop are back with a deliciously dark yet essentially thorough album, produced by the legendary Trevor Horn.
Fundamental looks at the world in 2006, taking inspiration from current events and moulding them into electronically flourished songs. Includes the single I'm With Stupid

Review - Top Shop: Messrs Tennant and Lowe, back to their best
The Pet Shop Boys are an institution. That much is obvious after a 25-year career that's included four Number 1's, 35 Top 20 hits, and their own musical. It's also true that the last decade, the post-Britpop years, has not been especially kind. It's not just that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe were never much on guitars: their last wholly satisfying collection of songs was 1993's Very.
A quick blast of Fundamental and it's like 10 years of treading water never happened. Vintage Pet Shop Boys in make-up, their ninth album balances social comment you can dance to (Integral, about New Labour's totalitarian tendencies), dramatically melancholy ballads (Luna Park) and Tennant's always sanguine musings on the pros and cons of hedonism (The Sodom and Gomorrah Show). In that sense Fundamental is much like 1987's Actually or 1990's Behaviour (ie, it sits right alongside the duo's very best work).
Perhaps the difference is a new producer, '80's synth-pop magus Trevor Horn, who seems to have done a Rick Rubin and put the duo back in touch with what made them special in the first place. Musically, the panache has returned, notably on Minimal's graceful disco, while lyrically Tennant is back to his waspish best on I'm With Stupid, which wickedly skewer's Bush and Blair's "special relationship" ("You grin/I pose/It's not about sincerity/Everybody knows").
Only the soppy Numb, written by American hit machine Diane Warren, is a misfire, as it's mid-Atlantic doggerel ("I wanna feel numb/I don't wanna feel this pain no more") is more X-Factor than Pet Shop Boys. It's a particularly poor fit because the rest here is so in sync. Still a national treasure? Of course. Britain's greatest pop group? Absolutely.
**** - Excellent/Q Recommends
Download: Minimal, The Sodom and Gomorrah Show, I'm With Stupid, Luna Park and Integral

wieske · #2 Post by **wieske** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 6:47 pm

Think I will buy this Q-issue

! · #3 Post by ! » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 6:58 pm

wieske wrote:Think I will buy this Q-issue

The picture that they use is one of the "white" ones that was in the last Q. It's a different picture tho, like an outtake or somethin'...Crhis is stood up, Neil sat down

wieske · #4 Post by **wieske** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 7:53 pm

Great!

joepsb · #5 Post by **joepsb** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 8:00 pm

not many get a 5 star review

wieske · #6 Post by **wieske** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 8:19 pm

They get a 5 star review because Neil & Chris are just the best, for now and forever!!

TrasTornado · #7 Post by **TrasTornado** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 8:22 pm

GalataPSB · #8 Post by **GalataPSB** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 8:24 pm

I`ll buy!

! · #9 Post by ! » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 8:26 pm

joepsb wrote:not many get a 5 star review

Well, the new Red Hot Chilli Peppers album has gotten 5 stars and the new Coldplay album got 5 stars...5 stars means Q Classic btw...most albums that are any good get 4 stars...

CroMagnon · #10 Post by **CroMagnon** » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 9:15 pm

! wrote:
joepsb wrote:not many get a 5 star review
Well, the new Red Hot Chilli Peppers album has gotten 5 stars and the new Coldplay album got 5 stars...5 stars means Q Classic btw...most albums that are any good get 4 stars...

Just for comparision, what have they given the last couple of albums? I vaguely recall them saying that Nightlife was their greatest album and that Happiness is An Option was a piece of pop perfection (wrong on both counts) - what did they say about Release?

! · #11 Post by ! » Fri 28 Apr 2006, 9:18 pm

CroMagnon wrote:
! wrote:
joepsb wrote:not many get a 5 star review
Well, the new Red Hot Chilli Peppers album has gotten 5 stars and the new Coldplay album got 5 stars...5 stars means Q Classic btw...most albums that are any good get 4 stars...
Just for comparision, what have they given the last couple of albums? I vaguely recall them saying that Nightlife was their greatest album and that Happiness is An Option was a piece of pop perfection (wrong on both counts) - what did they say about Release?

They gave Release the same as Fundamental, 4 stars

! · #12 Post by ! » Sat 29 Apr 2006, 12:09 am

Just seen this ad in the back -

Pet Shop Boys - Thetford Forest
The Forestry Commision by arrangement with Helter Skelter Present
PET SHOP BOYS plus guests
Friday 21 July 2006
High Lodge
Thetford Forest
Santon Downham, Near Brandon, Suffolk

The picture that they use is the one with them stood next to the neon track titles

psb-freak · #13 Post by **psb-freak** » Sat 29 Apr 2006, 7:21 am

Thanks for the info. Gotta buy it then.

Tomas · #14 Post by **Tomas** » Sat 29 Apr 2006, 4:35 pm

wieske wrote:They get a 5 star review because Neil & Chris are just the best, for now and forever!!

But they got only 4 stars?