Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[Disco.]

Fantastic track, they should have made a Christmas album, not too late(Won’t happen)

[Patrick Bateman]

Decent enough first time round but should never have been a single in 2009. The idea of a Christmas EP replete with cosy cover versions to support a tour is antithetical to Discography-era PSB and illustrates how National Treasure PSB were vastly inferior.

The original was always a bit too clever and postmodern to completely work as a Christmas song though.

[Drico One]

For some reason, from fundamental onwards, the press started to see them as elder statesmen of pop and starting treating them with some reverence.

In 1999, they were considered "veterans". By 2006, they were "legendary". It's just a process of resilience acknowledgment. In 1999, pop had become day-glo. Boybands and girl groups had taken over and were augmented by trance DJs. Pet Shop Boys were older than the boybands and seemed older than the new technologists. Pop is about being new. They weren't. By 2006, kiddy-pop and stage school shamelessness had washed out of the system. Dance music had, let's face it, taken one tab too many. The "elder statesmen" had, somehow, endured, not least because their by-now ancient hit singles were simply superior to what followed. The sugar rush had passed and the potency of nostalgia was kicking in... 20 years since West Eng girls... And then they became a touring behemoth with Es Devlin.

If you stick around long enough, you get grudging respect. They continued to chronicle ordinary lives and celebrity culture in their own incomparable way. Their careful attention to what happened under street lamps, spotlights, and bedsheets made them detached and reliable narrators of modern life with the passing of their own intense public glare. Some people stopped taking them for granted... As they promised in 1985: "We've got no future, we've got no past, here today, built to last."

The very manifesto of timelessness.

Drico.

[Drico One]

One of the issues I have with their Elton collabs - and the musical - is that whereas they had previously critiqued and chronicled celebrity culture from the outside, they were now within it and of it. So, while they had the distance in 1987 to, if not provoke, at least play with the idea that Rent had some hidden or removed Elton John male prostitute subtext, they were now recording lazy duets with him with all the attendant lack of interest that entailed.

The musical was horribly hackneyed. "Straight Dave, just off the boat from Ireland" was hilariously reductive middle-England cliché. It treated the "Irish" - and was he even Irish? - in much the same way a Colonel from the shires might view "the gays". I blame Jonathan Harvey for the musical. But they definitely have a slightly wild strand to their output that is best chained in the basement and fed fish-heads lest it break out and embarrass everyone. Harvey best represents that. In denial is possibly the nadir of this tendency: "Take Kylie and pretend you're her gay dad."

Compelling.

Drico.

[Gabby]

The musical was horribly hackneyed. "Straight Dave, just off the boat from Ireland" was hilariously reductive middle-England cliché. It treated the "Irish" - and was he even Irish? - in much the same way a Colonel from the shires might view "the gays". I blame Jonathan Harvey for the musical. But they definitely have a slightly wild strand to their output that is best chained in the basement and fed fish-heads lest it break out and embarrass everyone. Harvey best represents that. In denial is possibly the nadir of this tendency: "Take Kylie and pretend you're her gay dad".

Call it my naivety, but with what you said here, it only just occurred to me that PSB were likely, to some extent, forced to write songs in line with Harvey's story, which I suspect could have clipped their creative wings quite significantly. That would be a surprising amount of creative control for them to give away.

I know they have often "trusted the process" with certain collaborators (especially it seems with music videos) and with mixed results (the Home & Dry video anyone?), so perhaps I will listen to the Nightlife output through that lens going forward, to see if it helps.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

so perhaps I will listen to the Nightlife output through that lens going forward, to see if it helps.

Except that Nightlife is a Pet Shop Boys album, not Closer To Heaven. That they allowed Nightlife to be so contaminated by Closer To Heaven is entirely their doing. It is one thing for the Closer To Heaven Cast Soundtrack to be compromised by such restrictions, but not Nightlife.

Re: It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas...

The original was always a bit too clever and postmodern to completely work as a Christmas song though.

I'm inclined to agree, although that alone makes it suitably Pet Shop Boys.

Retro.

[Patrick Bateman]

Call it my naivety, but with what you said here, it only just occurred to me that PSB were likely, to some extent, forced to write songs in line with Harvey's story, which I suspect could have clipped their creative wings quite significantly. That would be a surprising amount of creative control for them to give away.

I know they have often "trusted the process" with certain collaborators (especially it seems with music videos) and with mixed results (the Home & Dry video anyone?), so perhaps I will listen to the Nightlife output through that lens going forward, to see if it helps.

I wouldn't let them off the hook. They chose him for the project and I'm sure they would have met regularly throughout to discuss the plot.

They worked with Harvey because of Beautiful Thing rather than Gimme Gimme Gimme, didn't they? The tone of the latter is very different to that of the former.

[rathound]

It doesn't often snow is a decent enough track for what it is. It's a bit throwaway and silly but that goes with the territory of a Christmas song. Quite sweet lyrics

[Lleonard Pler]

Greetings,

Time now for...

Track 127 : It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas
Chronology: Nightlife, FL-CD1:07 (Fan Club Mix)
Chronology: Yes, FL-CD2:02 (New Version)

Per Drico's rules in the OP, "any track appearing more than once will have all of its versions discussed on first appearance"... so feel free to discuss the original version, or the later version from the Christmas EP.

Retro.

A classic Christmas track, both satyrical and joyous. I grew accostumed to the New Version and that's the one that I prefer. I use it often in my Instagram stories during Christmas time.

[telys]

The musical was horribly hackneyed. "Straight Dave, just off the boat from Ireland" was hilariously reductive middle-England cliché. It treated the "Irish" - and was he even Irish? - in much the same way a Colonel from the shires might view "the gays". I blame Jonathan Harvey for the musical. But they definitely have a slightly wild strand to their output that is best chained in the basement and fed fish-heads lest it break out and embarrass everyone. Harvey best represents that. In denial is possibly the nadir of this tendency: "Take Kylie and pretend you're her gay dad".

Call it my naivety, but with what you said here, it only just occurred to me that PSB were likely, to some extent, forced to write songs in line with Harvey's story, which I suspect could have clipped their creative wings quite significantly. That would be a surprising amount of creative control for them to give away.

I know they have often "trusted the process" with certain collaborators (especially it seems with music videos) and with mixed results (the Home & Dry video anyone?), so perhaps I will listen to the Nightlife output through that lens going forward, to see if it helps.

Reminds me of a spoof on drama documentary in a Simpson's episode: "When Surgery Goes Wrong".... this era is "When Collaborations Go Wrong".... The musical, Elton duet, H&D mice video, Brian Eno.

[Kompakt&Bijou]

Call it my naivety, but with what you said here, it only just occurred to me that PSB were likely, to some extent, forced to write songs in line with Harvey's story, which I suspect could have clipped their creative wings quite significantly. That would be a surprising amount of creative control for them to give away.

I know they have often "trusted the process" with certain collaborators (especially it seems with music videos) and with mixed results (the Home & Dry video anyone?), so perhaps I will listen to the Nightlife output through that lens going forward, to see if it helps.

I wouldn't let them off the hook. They chose him for the project and I'm sure they would have met regularly throughout to discuss the plot.

They worked with Harvey because of Beautiful Thing rather than Gimme Gimme Gimme, didn't they? The tone of the latter is very different to that of the former.

Good points. At least they learnt their lesson and future side projects were kept disctinctly apart and branded as Tennant/Lowe productions.

[NotInvisible]

Decent enough first time round but should never have been a single in 2009. The idea of a Christmas EP replete with cosy cover versions to support a tour is antithetical to Discography-era PSB and illustrates how National Treasure PSB were vastly inferior

If PSB were frozen in aspic for 18 years the whole endeavor would be pointless. IDOSAC 2009 is joyous - a jazz trumpet solo, from Pet Shop Boys? I've always loved this track, even if the chorus riff does sound a bit like the old Folger's jingle. Not sure how cosy the Madness cover is. It's quite different from the original, and Neil singing about his girl is pretty funny. I love imperial era PSB as much as anyone, but they've acquitted themselves well in the latter half of their career. The key difference, as always, being that I"m not a teenager anymore.

[Capsigrany]

Altough the 2009 version is very good, I think that it should have been released in time when the first version appeared (in a more polished way maybe). It would have been a very good Xmas single back in the day (catchy, Xmas-esque, easy-sounding). 2009 was too late for it in my opinion, and even worse when you call Christmas an EP with a demo-sounding Coldplay cover and a Madness cover…A pointless effort.

[NotInvisible]

Altough the 2009 version is very good, I think that it should have been released in time when the first version appeared (in a more polished way maybe). It would have been a very good Xmas single back in the day (catchy, Xmas-esque, easy-sounding). 2009 was too late for it in my opinion, and even worse when you call Christmas an EP with a demo-sounding Coldplay cover and a Madness cover…A pointless effort.

I mean, it's not pointless in the sense that we got some great tracks out of it, but I agree that by 2009 they were in no danger of troubling the charts.

The Coldplay cover was awful, but if they hadn't bunged it on something you know fans would be complaining. Might as well tuck it away on a Christmas present, where most people are in good cheer about tacky fun.

[NOBODY75]

It's a very good Christmas song. If the boom in Christmas songs in recent years had coincided with his Imperial phase, which for me extends to Very, I think it would have reached quite high in the charts.