Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[Disco.]

A masterpiece, and why for many years they were a Emi International priority act, as Chris said.

[Patrick Bateman]

As they've observed, you can definitely chart an alternative universe where this as a classic one-hit wonder. They'd be fondly remembered, Chris having returned to designing staircases in Milton Keynes and Neil would pop up on BBC4 documentaries occasionally talking about The Waste Land and Grandmaster Flash in between Joe Dolce and the guy from White Town. On the plus side, no Absolutely Fabulous.

[Tom Angel]

As they've observed, you can definitely chart an alternative universe where this as a classic one-hit wonder. They'd be fondly remembered, Chris having returned to designing staircases in Milton Keynes and Neil would pop up on BBC4 documentaries occasionally talking about The Waste Land and Grandmaster Flash in between Joe Dolce and the guy from White Town. On the plus side, no Absolutely Fabulous.

Haha. Or wedding in Berlin.

Maybe Chris would have found fame with Staircase of the week.

[Sandy Shaw]

A friend of mine years ago was at an event where Stephen Hague chatted about making West End Girls and apparently played around with the faders on the multi track... I was very envious when I heard about this. A terrific song with a wonderful production...

[TallThinMan]

I was delighted when quite out of the blue 'West End girls' unexpectedly gave up more of its secrets about three years ago.

We finally learned just what those spoken words on the street in the intro are: http://www.muzines.co.uk/blog/sound-div ... d-girls/43

We also learned that as well as playing the "trumpet" solo on the Emulator, Stephen Hague also wrote the intro (and outro) chords of the hit version. They really should have given him a writing credit, but I guess in songwriting royalty terms he contributed nothing because he didn't write any of the words.

[jasonjohn]

I always imagined the voice at the start being a paper boy calling out a random daily headline

Had never been to England so I pictured him like Oliver Twist dressed in tweed and a cap, lol.

[Gabby]

I was delighted when quite out of the blue 'West End girls' unexpectedly gave up more of its secrets about three years ago.

We finally learned just what those spoken words on the street in the intro are: http://www.muzines.co.uk/blog/sound-div ... d-girls/43

We also learned that as well as playing the "trumpet" solo on the Emulator, Stephen Hague also wrote the intro (and outro) chords of the hit version. They really should have given him a writing credit, but I guess in songwriting royalty terms he contributed nothing because he didn't write any of the words.

That's nuts - I had no idea! I wonder where she is today?

[Drico One]

Track 3: Opportunities (Let's make lost of money)

Chronology: Please, Track 3

Opportunities was really the ideal debut single – even if the subsequent remix was what became a transatlantic hit – because it nailed their manifesto, their Ninety-Five Theses, to the door of Top of the Pops. Yet, it also gave them a reputation as ironic mischiefists which they've never really shaken off. Essentially, they were misunderstood right from the start. Some thought they were grasping Chicago School mercenaries, others saw them as trivial. I wasn't immune.

I remember seeing them on Channel 4 one summer Sunday afternoon in 1986 and having my perception changed. Until then, their image seemed to suggest an unholy alliance of homosexuality, hamsters and Margaret Thatcher. Opportunities was central to that misconception, because, frankly, selfishness and "aspiration" – in reality, drawbridge-retracting greed - were being celebrated everywhere at that time. There was little in pop that suggested something else.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure my initial misinterpretation of their attitude arose from my mistaken conviction that they were horrible Tories. Their sulky, distant superiority seemed quite different to all that surrounded them in the dying days of Wham's pop hegemony, and it was easy to misread them as wine bar Yuppies on a haughty, loadsamoney surge up the charts when this came out.

A certain homophobia surrounded them at the time too - and it's easy to forget that this was the era of AIDS and the scaremongering terror that enveloped the media. This celebration of brains and brawn sat uneasily in that environment.

That this song was "of the zeitgeist" tells you all you need to know about the mid 1980s. That they could deconstruct it so subversively and still score a huge hit while doing so tells you all you need to know about the soon-to-be imperious PSBs.

[Sandy Shaw]

I've always thoughr it owed a debt (pun intended) to ABC:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(How_to ... illionaire

[Disco.]

A great track, a pity that is so misunderstood, but maybe that is to be expected, nice Pettibone remix.

[TallThinMan]

That's nuts - I had no idea! I wonder where she is today?

I wonder if she even has any idea? Just imagine being randomly sampled (probably without even knowing) and then being immortalised on an iconic multi-million seller!

[psbfannyc]

The first Opportunities video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di60NYGu03Y

[Spittingcat]

I’d forgotten about that! Chris looks like he’s in Tears for Fears.

[Gary1962]

The 12 inch single is superb, and it has one of my all time favourite B-Sides "Was That What It Was?".

The promo video was cool too.

[daveid]

Opportunities was their Born in the USA. A critical satire misappropriated by mindless media, they could see the way the 80s were heading. Written in 1983 as Maggie secured her second victory on the back of sinking foreign ships, it was a hit just a few months before Big Bang which deregulated the British banking system and unleashed the financial genie that got us where we are today.

We'll go shopping next album.