Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[jasonjohn]

Neil would enjoys it because he can shout loudly knowing the vocoder is a safety net. Barry White does a lot of the heavy lifting, to be fair.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

And thus concludes our often arduous crawl through the Nightlife era. I intend to step back a bit from pushing these through daily and am more than willing to pass the baton onto someone else. My incentive really was to get us collectively through the two Further Listening discs and past all the talk about how much that era sucked - because, whilst such observations are not altogether wrong, it was dragging us too far away from the intended "track-by-track" analysis of this topic, and if we didn't march on, we'd never arrive at their 21st century renaissance!

So, welcome to Release.

Track 138 : Home And Dry
Chronology: Release - Track 1 (Album Version)
Chronology: Release FL 1:13 (Ambient Mix)

Discussion welcome.

Retro.

[leesmapman]

When I first heard it on the radio, I really liked what I heard. Then Neil started singing and so I learned there was a new PSB single.
Still a strong track. I usually hum it to myself when I go home after a long journey or holiday.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

When I first heard Home And Dry it was on a CD-R of the Release album that a mate had downloaded for me off the internet, pre-release. I was appalled at how demo-ish the album sounded. I diligently bought the album upon release (ahem) and was disappointed to find that it was exactly the same - only in CD quality, rather than 192kbps quality.

I didn't listen to it a lot. 2002 was when electroclash was getting up and running, and I was getting much more joy from the likes of Fischerspooner, Felix Da Housecat, Ladytron, Adult., Miss Kittin and co. than whatever this was.

In time I would go back to Release and find something a bit more in it. I came to eventually like it more than Nightlife (even though I didn't at the time) and even now prefer to it Super. If I knew Disco 3 was around the corner I might have been a bit more patient, but by now I had more or less tuned out.

How do I feel about the track now? Well, it's fine. The vocoder effects sound awfully dated and out of place. There's a nice enough song in there, and at its core, it's a really sweet song. I prefer to think of it that way than to focus on the "dry - e - eye - e- eye".

Retro.

[leesmapman]

Chris' "I'm going home" is so.. poweful (for the lack of a better word). It really gives the song a strong feeling of homecoming.

[VRIDD]

I am in love Home and Dry from the very first time I heard the song. An instant classic for me. Still one of my favourite songs

Just the video was ugly for me, but in 2002 I did not care about videos anymore

[tottenhammattspurs]

It’s a beautiful song. Hindered by the fact it’s what the public think the Pet Shop Boys shouldn’t be sounding like. If Badly Yawned Boy or David Gray performed this, it would have been hailed as a classic. Typical “stay in your lane” reviews.

[tottenhammattspurs]

It’s a beautiful song. Hindered by the fact it’s what the public think the Pet Shop Boys shouldn’t be sounding like. If Badly Yawned Boy or David Gray performed this, it would have been hailed as a classic. Typical “stay in your lane” reviews.

[tottenhammattspurs]

Double post.

[Lleonard Pler]

Beautiful track that takes me back to those days. It's nostalgic and yearning yet reaffirming, it really creates a sound that matches what the lyrics say.

Glad that we made it through Nightlife FL. Good job Retro. We're really made it home and dry.

[Morse]

Such a warm and lovely song.

The ambient version is amazing - up there with the Blank & Jones mix of Love Comes Quickly.

[rathound]

some songs I like there

Lies - never going to trouble an album but it's good. The sound of an angry Chris, bit of a one off there
Positive role model - Like the poster above I liked the Electroclash era and I guess this was a pointer in that direction
Home and Dry - very nice track, ambient version is good. Also like the video personally, reminds me of living in London where I did also like watching the mice on the tracks - brings me back to those days

[Gabby]

Its a quaint track, Neil's vocal sounds a bit slurred (maybe too much recording desk tweaking?).

The video is divisive but I kind of like it. I have a Uni tour shirt with a mouse on the bottom edge which has more than once freaked people out thinking a real one was climbing up my shirt!

[Birthday Boy]

I love everything about Home and dry, it is still one of my favourite Pet Shop Boys songs. The ambient mix is very nice too.

[TallThinMan]

The idea they had for ‘Home and dry’ of writing multiple different melody lines for the various parts of the song over the same chords and backing is one of those brilliant Pet Shop Boys creative ideas.

We’re firmly into the post Cher ‘Believe’ Autotune era and much of ‘Release’ suffers for this, including the lead single.