Pet Shop Boys 2025 top 20

[NOBODY75]

Thank you so much, Dog, for this.
I really enjoyed reading it.

[NOBODY75]

And HAPPY NEW YEAR To everyone

[Patrick Bateman]

Very nice thread, whatever the odd naysayer might suggest.

Now on to the actual content. My overriding feeling is that I am torn between the rich variety of their current lives and a sense that not much of what they currently do captivates me.

It's simultaneously wonderful to see them explore the varied nooks and crannies of their artistry and rather easy to be unmoved by it all. Then again, why should everything they do move anybody but themselves?

I'll always love them and will champion their post-imperial output until I'm deep in the ground, but the last half-decade or so has been largely underwhelming for me. That, however, could very well say more about me than them.

Long may they reign.

Drico.

I'm being contrary but I think that Please to Nonetheless thread accentuates it for me. We're at the point where they really couldn't do anything wrong (imagine a world where It Couldn't Happen Here was considered their only mis-step) and we're approaching the Rubicon moment in 1994...

Of course I love a lot of what they did post-Very but I also slightly mourn that invincibility they had up to then. And I understand that this year is effectively a fallow year but there's not many fertile years left anyway. Like you, it says more about me wanting a new Left to my own devices (unrealistic) rather than a Hymn or Musik, which I have zero interest in.

[NOBODY75]

I think it's fine that they do things between albums. It's a different story if that were all they did and they stopped releasing albums, like Pet Shop Boys. In that case, I'd be very disappointed.

But since they're projects between albums, there's always a chance I'll like them. If they don't create anything, I can't like anything.

[leesmapman]

Oh yes, you'll miss it when nothing happens.

[Gabby]

To Drico's point, how would one go about recreating the "good old days" in a way that represents the now?

For me some of the most exciting PSB times where the collabs with Dusty, Liza and Electronic. How can you recreate that level of diversity and yet still make it relevant? An album written/produced by them for Kylie, or SEB maybe? Perhaps just a new Electronic album with them participating again, but it's hardly going to set the world on fire.

A new album of theirs produced by someone truly on the cutting edge? Who might that be?

I don't really think it's possible to capture that lightning in a bottle again, but I do think there are some unmined and interesting avenues they could go down.

What really needs to happen is for someone in the now to do what they did for Dusty and Liza - invite them to collaborate on a big project that is actually NOT a PSB one, but I am not sure they could give up that level of control.

[markus]

One way of trying to recreate the “good old days” would be to hire an agency to micromanage a flawless strategy alongside the crowd-pleasing greatest hits tour. The aim would be to win back lost fans and impress them — even if it means selling a bit of their soul, just to seem cool and relevant, as if 1990 never ended. They’d have to think of themselves as a boy band: puppets, handing over total control of every aspect.

[Drico One]

I'm being contrary but I think that Please to Nonetheless thread accentuates it for me. We're at the point where they really couldn't do anything wrong (imagine a world where It Couldn't Happen Here was considered their only mis-step) and we're approaching the Rubicon moment in 1994...

Of course I love a lot of what they did post-Very but I also slightly mourn that invincibility they had up to then. And I understand that this year is effectively a fallow year but there's not many fertile years left anyway. Like you, it says more about me wanting a new Left to my own devices (unrealistic) rather than a Hymn or Musik, which I have zero interest in.

I wasn't referring to you as a naysayer, by the way (just in case you misunderstood that)... In fact, I share your disinterest in their present activities. I loved Dreamworld and Dancing Star. Both, in different but deliberate ways, invoked the past. I really don't expect septuagenarians to captivate me the way they did in their heyday. By the same token, I don't think I am as open to being captivated as I was in mine. In other words, that "invincibility" that you refer to was a happy coincidence that had a natural window. Their artistic peak - in terms of cultural relevance - coincided with our youth. We were open to identifying with the touchstones of our adolescence - and we identified with them. It's diminishing returns now - but the alternative for fans of 80s pop groups is no returns. So, we've been the big fanbase winners of our generation.

Occasionally they come up with new songs that I love, but that's rarer now. I didn't think Neil had much new to say on Nonetheless. The wordplay and wit is still there - and that's enough to make him compelling - but he's in memoir mode on that album so, by definition, there's a lot of retreading. I can't really criticise that - it just doesn't move me tremendously.

Again, I'm not sure that's on them. It's almost certainly all on me. They represent more than their catalogue, more than their artistry. They represent something about us - and that something has changed as we have matured. So, I think there's no way back to, say, that sense of complete immersion that I, personally, felt as a fan exploring Behaviour, Performance, Discography, and Very. And why would there be? "Remember those days, the early nineties..."

We all get older. As fans, we tend to invoke maturity when referring to them because they are the focus of our attention. But, actually, we're giving ourselves an undeserved pass by becoming oblivious to how we have changed. In the South Bank Show, Chris declares that pop is at its weakest when performed by forty-somethings... I would add, it is at it weakest as an immersive experience when enjoyed by forty-somethings. And I've knocked a few years off for myself there...

Drico.

[NotInvisible]

As they say in comic book spaces, the best era for the medium is whenever the observer was fourteen (aka the best Dr Who is your first). PSB will never feel as vital as they did in our youth, because we grew up, too.

Meanwhile, who else their age can match them today?

[NOBODY75]

I understand what Drico is saying, and I agree with him. If Actually or Very moved me a 10 and Nonetheless a 7, it's not because there's a 3-point difference between them. Part of that difference isn't Pets' fault, but mine, since I'm 50 now, not 18. If they had released Very last year, maybe I would have been 8.5. And if they had released Nonetheless in '93, that 8.5 might have been the same level of emotion. Blame shared. No matter what they release, it will never move me like it did when I was a child or a teenager. It's a fact of life.
However, the level of emotion their songs still evoke in me isn't bad at all for someone my age. Who would have imagined it while listening, amazed and with a happy smile, to Being Boring for the first time more than 35 years ago?

[markus]

Their songwriting is still superb, the videos aren’t. Axis is still the only worthwhile video since I Don’t Know What You Want but I Can’t Give It Any More.
Fan-made videos and even the remixes on YouTube are far better than the official releases.

Their PR is the real disaster, though. If something were to put them under scrutiny again…
Their perfectly controlled front once set the rules for others to follow, but right now they seem a bit lost and confused. Then again, so is everyone — the world feels like it’s in a state of madness at the moment.

[AndrewA]

Thanks for 2025 review Dog. I really enjoyed reading it.

PS. Loved the last series of In Depth. So much so, that I started listening to the first series again for the third time.

[NotInvisible]

Their PR is the real disaster, though. If something were to put them under scrutiny again…

Their PR is impeccable, to be honest. It's probably part of what's helped them evolve into their elder statesmen position.

They've had some terrific videos since 1999: Flamboyant I'm with Stupid, Numb, Love etc, Monkey Business. But obviously the budget for video in a post-MTV world for a non-trendy group of geriatrics will be quite different than that of hitmakers in their imperial phase.

[markus]

Their PR is the real disaster, though. If something were to put them under scrutiny again…

Their PR is impeccable, to be honest. It's probably part of what's helped them evolve into their elder statesmen position.

They've had some terrific videos since 1999: Flamboyant I'm with Stupid, Numb, Love etc, Monkey Business. But obviously the budget for video in a post-MTV world for a non-trendy group of geriatrics will be quite different than that of hitmakers in their imperial phase.

I could've produced better videos in my sleep. I'm not kidding, I have an artistic side and I made some music videos. But each to their own...

[NotInvisible]

I could've produced better videos in my sleep.