Super 10

[withanattitude]

Being in the "banging and lasers" camp I enjoyed that the Boys were re-juveniled by Stuart Price the second time with this album. Nonetheless, I wouldn't count it as one of my favourites. "Inner Sanctum" is a real gem, "Burn" is great, "The Pop Kids" has an intriguing chorus, "The dictator decides" shares a nice perspective. The rest of the songs sound okay-ish to me, nothing more, nothing less. All in all, at that time I thought, they didn't sound as fresh as other (younger) artists in electronic music, in spite of Stuart.

Also to me the artwork seemed a bit too cheap. I'm a great fan of the congenius Farrow-PSB connection. But that two-minute "I put a word in a colored circle" trick is the one I always use when time is short and I don't have a good idea in PowerPoint . It's a matter of taste, of course.

But yeah, I enjoyed to see the Boys alive and dancing.

[ILikeTheSinger]

I often make the mistake of still thinking that Electric is the new album, even though it's now 13 years old. I loved it then, and I still love it now. It was a hard act to follow, and at the time of release I did indeed find Super rather baffling.

But when I listen to it now, I hear an album of stellar pop/EDM bangers, and I love it for that. It may not always be their most sophisticated record, but it's great to dance to, and the tour was wonderful.

I'm a great lover of Stuart Price's pop/dance productions too, and the only thing I struggle with about the 'Price trilogy' is how tonally different Hotspot feels compared to its two predecessors, which existed in various shades of technicolour.

[jasonjohn]

I feel like Super is their cheapest album in every respect.

[Confidential]

I will never understand why "Burn" wasn't released as a single. It's much better than "Twenty-something" or "Inner Sanctum".

As they revealed, however, in their publication Annually 2017, the Boys had planned on releasing "Burn" as the fourth and final single from Super. But then the infamous "Ghost Ship" warehouse fire in Oakland, California on December 2, 2016, in which 36 people died during a dance party, put an end to those plans. As they rightly noted, suddenly a song with the refrain "We're gonna burn this disco down" seemed horribly inappropriate, and releasing it as a single so soon after such a tragic event would have been tasteless.

source: www.geowayne.com/newDesign/super/burn.htm

I obviously didn’t know this, but it explains so much. Thanks for the insight!

[MikeyC]

I'm a great lover of Stuart Price's pop/dance productions too

Same and I’m extremely excited for the upcoming new Madonna album!

[slurmjunkie]

Also to me the artwork seemed a bit too cheap.

I feel like Super is their cheapest album in every respect.

I have to agree. It's still my least favourite PSB album by far. Unlike all their other albums, I can't find a single 10/10 song with just "The pop kids" and "Burn" coming close. The title feels unintentionally ironic, Subpar would be more fitting.

That said, there were lots of great B-sides and bonus tracks from that period (including tracks later released on Lost and as Nonetheless B-sides), so I'm really looking forward to the Further Listening reissues of it together with Electric and Hotspot. The first two batches were released only five years after Bilingual and Elysium, respectively, so I was a bit disappointed that they weren't already released last year.

[richwill]

Imho The Pop Kids in both versions was underwritten, too on the nose as someone said, lacking in subtlety and also generic. It would have been much more effective if they'd referenced or named at least one particular hit from the era.

[richwill]

Calling it 'the music scene' is very very boomer. And why not also name some clubs?

[Drico One]

"Remember those days the early nineties
We both applied our make-up outside Kinky Gerlinky..."

Hmmm. Iffy. Still better than "Me I'm doing stuff about the global situation," mind. One of the most unintentionally naff lines in the catalogue. I still love it. A classic song.

Drico.

[Morse]

I think Super is probably the least cohesive Pet Shop Boys album - I still like it, but it doesn't hang together as well as Electric or Hotspot from the Price Trilogy.

I love The Popkids, Burn, and Into Thin Air...but there's something about the album holistically which doesn't seem to gel the songs together as well. I don't know what "it" is, but whatever "it" is makes it my least favourite out of the Price trilogy, for me, either way.

[daveid]

Also to me the artwork seemed a bit too cheap.

I feel like Super is their cheapest album in every respect.

I have to agree. It's still my least favourite PSB album by far. Unlike all their other albums, I can't find a single 10/10 song with just "The pop kids" and "Burn" coming close. The title feels unintentionally ironic, Subpar would be more fitting.

That said, there were lots of great B-sides and bonus tracks from that period (including tracks later released on Lost and as Nonetheless B-sides), so I'm really looking forward to the Further Listening reissues of it together with Electric and Hotspot. The first two batches were released only five years after Bilingual and Elysium, respectively, so I was a bit disappointed that they weren't already released last year.

For me it's the b sides that are generally poor but I really like the album. It feels like a collection of unconnected somewhat disposable and half-forged songs but for me that's the appeal. Much better than Hotspot with it's thin production and weird, discordant edge throughout although Monkey business is dope.