Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[telys]

I think you’re being a little dismissive. Being anti‑rock is a classic Pet Shop Boys theme - and this song is one of their purest lyrical distillations of it.

“Someone states the obvious
Someone sneers at all you love
Someone preaches ugly manners
excluding some, including me”

“All feelings blunted, all passion spent
Everybody does what everybody does
All the broken promises
to recreate a status quo”

Neil was (and probably still is) a rock fan. But he “learned” to hate it. It’s a song about exclusion, judgement, and disillusionment. Neil is rejecting what rock became: it promised liberation but delivered conformity.

It’s also entirely plausible that rock ’n’ roll is a metaphor for heteronormative culture and masculine expectations. Neil moved from rock to pop - but he also moved from being straight to being gay. His shift in musical allegiance mirrors his deeper shift in identity.

It always reminds me of Neil’s 1992 interview with Select magazine entitled “Hate: The Power of Negative Thinking”.

There he’s saying: “Sometimes you can only define yourself by what you hate. Hatred becomes energising.”

He describes hate as creative fuel - a way to reject the herd, to rebel against sameness, to carve out individuality.

That philosophy runs through this song. It’s a critique of rock culture but it’s also a coded narrative about identity, rebellion, and the power of negative emotion to shape who you are. It’s ultimately a song about losing faith in something you once loved and finding clarity in that loss.


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Unfortunately it says more about Neil, or rather is idea of what rock is, than it says anything about rock music. As I've said before, this is an area where Neil is dead wrong.
I mean did he ever consider the different aspects of the heavy metal scene.

Well, don’t forget Neil wrote it in the mid-90s. Maybe he’s now a massive Tool fan.

I hope he has changed his mindset because he seemed to be regarding rock music through a very narrow lens.
But to reiterate, I really like the music to this song and feels like a companion to Metamorph. and Electricity. Experimental. Kind of a forerunner to Electric. Also the first movement of Somewhere extended mix is part of this sound. Perhaps even Disco Potential. Well, hey even their version of Hallo Spaceboy.

[sterlinglush]

I'm surprised by the animosity toward this track. I love it. It's propulsive in a nasty way, the kind of thing you'd hear at a good bar late at night and stop speaking for a moment to listen closer if you didn't already know the song. I'd put it in the same genre as 'Axis' and 'Inner sanctum': the lyrics say what they have to say but aren't entirely the point. Like so much else, they can be taken literally or (my theory) seen as Neil being tongue-in-cheek. I can't say the earlier Army of Lovers comparison makes much sense to me, but I had somehow not thought about them in years, so thanks for that -- I might add them to a playlist later today.

[NOBODY75]

You have no place in this forum, you can shut up now.

Back to How I Learned to Hate Rock 'n' Roll - how does everyone feel about these sort of "throwaway" tracks? I'd put this in the same category as Transparent, Pazzo! and the like. I rarely come back to them.

I think you’re being a little dismissive. Being anti‑rock is a classic Pet Shop Boys theme - and this song is one of their purest lyrical distillations of it.

“Someone states the obvious
Someone sneers at all you love
Someone preaches ugly manners
excluding some, including me”

“All feelings blunted, all passion spent
Everybody does what everybody does
All the broken promises
to recreate a status quo”

Neil was (and probably still is) a rock fan. But he “learned” to hate it. It’s a song about exclusion, judgement, and disillusionment. Neil is rejecting what rock became: it promised liberation but delivered conformity.

It’s also entirely plausible that rock ’n’ roll is a metaphor for heteronormative culture and masculine expectations. Neil moved from rock to pop - but he also moved from being straight to being gay. His shift in musical allegiance mirrors his deeper shift in identity.

It always reminds me of Neil’s 1992 interview with Select magazine entitled “Hate: The Power of Negative Thinking”.

There he’s saying: “Sometimes you can only define yourself by what you hate. Hatred becomes energising.”

He describes hate as creative fuel - a way to reject the herd, to rebel against sameness, to carve out individuality.

That philosophy runs through this song. It’s a critique of rock culture but it’s also a coded narrative about identity, rebellion, and the power of negative emotion to shape who you are. It’s ultimately a song about losing faith in something you once loved and finding clarity in that loss.


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Thanks for your reflection, Dog. Very interesting read. A good flip side. I'd also apply the saying "I never look for it, but I never ignore it if it comes up."

[rathound]

I'm surprised by the animosity toward this track. I love it. It's propulsive in a nasty way, the kind of thing you'd hear at a good bar late at night and stop speaking for a moment to listen closer if you didn't already know the song. I'd put it in the same genre as 'Axis' and 'Inner sanctum': the lyrics say what they have to say but aren't entirely the point. Like so much else, they can be taken literally or (my theory) seen as Neil being tongue-in-cheek. I can't say the earlier Army of Lovers comparison makes much sense to me, but I had somehow not thought about them in years, so thanks for that -- I might add them to a playlist later today.

listening back I agree. It's a top track. The instrumental break downs are proper dancey stuff, I'd have liked to have heard a bit more of this in the bilingual era. As I mentioned in the Se a Vida e chat, on the CD single, this was the track my non-PSB liking mates digged far more than the others on it.

Always thought the lyrics were a little bit of Neil parroting Chris rather than his own thoughts as such. Chris being far more vocal in his anti rock tastes

[Disco.]

It’s a nice b-side, nothing more, nothing less.

[Xakrij]

It always comes as a surprise how I learned to hate rock ‘n’ roll.

Complete sentence.

[NotInvisible]

I think you’re being a little dismissive. Being anti‑rock is a classic Pet Shop Boys theme - and this song is one of their purest lyrical distillations of it.

I'm dismissive of the track, sure. It's musically uninteresting and lyrically slight. I do like (and endorse) the theme, though, and agree with your analysis. I just wish it was conveyed via a stronger song.

[Morse]

Unfortunately it says more about Neil, or rather is idea of what rock is, than it says anything about rock music. As I've said before, this is an area where Neil is dead wrong.
I mean did he ever consider the different aspects of the heavy metal scene.

Well, don’t forget Neil wrote it in the mid-90s. Maybe he’s now a massive Tool fan.

I hope he has changed his mindset because he seemed to be regarding rock music through a very narrow lens.
But to reiterate, I really like the music to this song and feels like a companion to Metamorph. and Electricity. Experimental. Kind of a forerunner to Electric. Also the first movement of Somewhere extended mix is part of this sound. Perhaps even Disco Potential. Well, hey even their version of Hallo Spaceboy.

Well, speaking as someone who took Chris' Paninaro mantra literally and adopted it into my life as the biblical prophecy that it is, I whole-heartedly love this song and everything it says about rock music.

[markus]

I think you’re being a little dismissive. Being anti‑rock is a classic Pet Shop Boys theme - and this song is one of their purest lyrical distillations of it.

I'm dismissive of the track, sure. It's musically uninteresting and lyrically slight. I do like (and endorse) the theme, though, and agree with your analysis. I just wish it was conveyed via a stronger song.

Miss Piggy, take a look at Dog’s post and compare it to your own standards. You might pick up a few hints before you try dragging this forum down into the mud again.

[NotInvisible]

Miss Piggy, take a look at Dog’s post and compare it to your own standards. You might pick up a few hints before you try dragging this forum down into the mud again.

What a strange response to a post that literally says I "agree with your analysis."

[markus]

Miss Piggy, take a look at Dog’s post and compare it to your own standards. You might pick up a few hints before you try dragging this forum down into the mud again.

What a strange response to a post that literally says I "agree with your analysis."

For once, you were actually respectful — which is how you should be toward everyone here. Especially considering most of your own posts are plainly stupid. Try keeping it that way.

[NotInvisible]

For once, you were actually respectful — which is how you should be toward everyone here.

Especially considering most of your own posts are plainly stupid.

The irony.

[Drico One]

I think you’re being a little dismissive. Being anti‑rock is a classic Pet Shop Boys theme - and this song is one of their purest lyrical distillations of it.

I'm dismissive of the track, sure. It's musically uninteresting and lyrically slight. I do like (and endorse) the theme, though, and agree with your analysis. I just wish it was conveyed via a stronger song.

Yes, I tend to agree. Dog's analysis is spot-on, but I never thought Neil's critique amounted to a hat of crabs musically. I loved his take on rock, and its conservative, exclusionary self-aggrandising nature. But as a track? A footnote in their catalogue.

Better as a set of lyrics.

Drico.

[markus]

For once, you were actually respectful — which is how you should be toward everyone here.

Especially considering most of your own posts are plainly stupid.

The irony.

This is exactly the problem. You seem to believe that a demeaning remark passes for intelligence. It doesn’t. It just reinforces the impression that you mistake arrogance for intelligence. Stop acting like an idiot. Everyone's watching.

[Drico One]

Markus, enough.