Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[Gabby]

IDGWIAT is definitely top tier material - probably should have been at LEAST on Release (or an album) rather than relegated to a B-Side. It would have elevated Release for sure and I think fits just fine with the rest of it.

If it had been on an album, then I can see why it might have been a contender as a single release as well, but given PSB's rather mediocre charting by this time, I doubt it would have been as invigorating for them as anything else.

[Patrick Bateman]

Although I’ve grown to like "Between" a bit more over time, "I Didn't Get" is more commercial. After the "Home and Dry" teaser, that should have been the second single.
It’s one thing to have such high-quality songwriting that you relegate amazing tracks to B-sides because you have an embarrassment of riches—take "Shameless" during the *Very* era, for instance—but it’s something else entirely to leave "I Didn't Get" as a B-side during the *Release* era. It’s completely ridiculous.

Yes, they've always done it but this thread has shown how you can get away with it when you've got a backlog of brilliant songs like they had in the early days but less so when it's the late 1990s and you're writing a musical at the same time as an album.

I also understand why certain songs might not suit the mood or style of an album, so maybe IDGWIAT is too upbeat for Release but yes, it seems odd to leave arguably the most anthemic guitar-based track off your guitar-based album.

[NOBODY75]

I can't help but ask why you think "Miserabilism" didn't quite fit with the rest of Behaviour....

[NOBODY75]

its similar to Miserabilism - a great song that didn't quite fit the mood of the album at the time and was just rushed out on a greatest hits single b-side shortly after.

I can't help but ask why you think "Miserabilism" didn't quite fit with the rest of *Behaviour*

[Patrick Bateman]

I can't help but ask why you think "Miserabilism" didn't quite fit with the rest of Behaviour....

I don't!

[NOBODY75]

I can't help but ask why you think "Miserabilism" didn't quite fit with the rest of Behaviour....

I don't!

From your emphatic "No!", Patrick, I gather that it doesn't work for you either. It works perfectly for me. That’s why I was asking... to hear perspectives different from my own.

[NOBODY75]

I can't help but ask why you think "Miserabilism" didn't quite fit with the rest of Behaviour....

I don't!

From your emphatic "I dont!", Patrick, I gather that it doesn't work for you either. It works perfectly for me. That’s why I was asking... to hear perspectives different from my own.

[Lleonard Pler]

If How can you expect to be taken seriously fit the "Behaviour mood", Miserablism could too, just like if they could make Samurai work in Release, I don't see how I didn't get where I am today would have been a problem. I'd even argue both discarded songs were more fitting and natural in "their" albums than some of the included tracks.

It wasn't a problem in Behaviour because all the album songs are really top material, but the same can't be said for Release, unfortunately.

[NOBODY75]

If How can you expect to be taken seriously fit the "Behaviour mood", Miserablism could too, just like if they could make Samurai work in Release, I don't see how I didn't get where I am today would have been a problem. I'd even argue both discarded songs were more fitting and natural in "their" albums than some of the included tracks.

It wasn't a problem in Behaviour because all the album songs are really top material, but the same can't be said for Release, unfortunately.

AMEN

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

I Didn't Get Where I Am Today has all the ingredients of a fantastic pop song - cohesive lyrics, bristling with energy, and a slight giddiness that's held together through strong transitions and mastery.

When you heard that Pet Shop Boys are making a "guitar album", this is exactly what you'd hope to hear on it. Yet, amazingly, someone thought The Night I Fell In Love would be a better inclusion.

Retro.

[petshopgrrl]

I Didn't Get Where I Am Today has all the ingredients of a fantastic pop song - cohesive lyrics, bristling with energy, and a slight giddiness that's held together through strong transitions and mastery.

When you hear that Pet Shop Boys are making a "guitar album", this is exactly what you'd hope to hear on it. Yet, amazingly, someone thought The Night I Fell In Love would be a better inclusion.

Agreed. Simply mind-boggling!

Anyway, this song... I love the subversion of the phrase "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today" - usually said as a celebration of one's own successes ("super, CJ!") but in this case prefacing a series of perceived failures. Brilliant lyric, but somewhat discomfiting to find that there's anything remotely autobiographical about this one, even if it was written in jest.

I'd love to know why they used this riff in particular. It's a very different setting to the original. The comparison to the Monkees is definitely justified, not just for the jangly guitar but also the whole song has that wry Monkees humor.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

Yes, when I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing gets described as "sixties", I don't really hear it, but on I Didn't Get Where I Am Today, I definitely do.

Retro.