Track-by-Track: From Please to Nonetheless

[ype]

"I'm longing to seeeeee you" - I've loved this track from day one. To my ears it's gorgeous and the best song on the album.

[Birthday Boy]

I love Footsteps, never understood the dislike for it among Pet Shop Boys fans. I find it really beautiful - the words, the melody, the certain sense of fear combined with a reassuring quality - and no one will ever convince me otherwise. Probably.

Sure, it's no Jealousy or King's Cross, but on the second half of Nightlife, this is definitely by far my favourite track. I do look forward to it every time I play the album.

[rathound]

It's ok. as above but slightly less enthusiastic. It's the best song on there from Radiophonic onwards but it's certainly not a classic and could have been a lot better. Maybe I was always still grumpy from listening to New York city boy before it whenever I approached it in the past

[Morse]

I love everything about Footsteps - the orchestration, the mood, the warmth, the lyrics - everything.

Such a good album closer and I'm surprised they didn't perform it at Obscure as a closer.

I've always loved Craig Armstrong, too.

[jasonjohn]

Ties in directly to the opener..... Will the lover come home from the clubs, to the lover they need? Will we hear his footsteps?

It's a very thematic album

[leesmapman]

Really looking forward to the b-sides of this era

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A528B met Tapatalk

[NOBODY75]

I'm not a huge fan of FootSteps. But at least their sound fits the album better than Boy Strange and The Only One. I've been surprised by the lack of affection many fans here have for New York city boy. Perhaps it's a song that will appeal more to casual fans or even non-fans than to hardcore fans

[Drico One]

By New York City boy they had - like all great pop acts - long since become a parody of themselves. In the 1980s, the parody was of an urbane, slightly sleazy, hyperliterate wallflower skulking around streetscapes with his mute, cooler mate under cover of darkness. You could take that on whatever level you liked. But by Rent this image was set in stone. See Raw Sex or Flight of the Conchords.

By 1999, the parody had changed. Now, it was of male voice choirs, disco pastiche, and cabaret camp.

Their problem was the later parody was less intriguing or interesting than the first, more exclusive, and less cool.

On its own terms, New York City boy is a fun track. Performed by a quasi-heritage act, it seemed a little weird. But when even Dale Winton is claiming it's too gay for his National Lottery show, you've probably jumped the shark in a feather boa to a disco beat. That said, what a prude era that was.

Drico.

[Drico One]

By the way, New York City boy appears on the forthcoming Now Yearbook 1999.

Drico.

[Kompakt&Bijou]

By New York City boy they had - like all great pop acts - long since become a parody of themselves. In the 1980s, the parody was of an urbane, slightly sleazy, hyperliterate wallflower skulking around streetscapes with his mute, cooler mate under cover of darkness. You could take that on whatever level you liked. But by Rent this image was set in stone. See Raw Sex or Flight of the Conchords.

By 1999, the parody had changed. Now, it was of male voice choirs, disco pastiche, and cabaret camp.

Their problem was the later parody was less intriguing or interesting than the first, more exclusive, and less cool.

On its own terms, New York City boy is a fun track. Performed by a quasi-heritage act, it seemed a little weird. But when even Dale Winton is claiming it's too gay for his National Lottery show, you've probably jumped the shark in a feather boa to a disco beat. That said, what a prude era that was.

Drico.

[Xakrij]

Who's to say that the footsteps in the dark aren't the lover tip-toeing down the hall to go back to the club/out to meet a tryst/score some drugs after his partner has gone to bed?

[NotInvisible]

Footsteps is execrable, although “waves against a ramshackle pier” is a brilliant lyric. Bilingual was their first real miss-step (all of you Absolutely fabulous haters are dead wrong), but Nightlife is their nadir. It speaks to how talented they are that we still got a few good songs out of it, but the ‘80s genius is well behind us.

Thank god for Release, reinvention, and finally the Fundamental-onward second wind of brilliance.

[ahafan02]

Footsteps is execrable, although “waves against a ramshackle pier” is a brilliant lyric. Bilingual was their first real miss-step (all of you Absolutely fabulous haters are dead wrong), but Nightlife is their nadir. It speaks to how talented they are that we still got a few good songs out of it, but the ‘80s genius is well behind us.

Thank god for Release, reinvention, and finally the Fundamental-onward second wind of brilliance.

I disagree. Bilingual was brilliant. Nightlife/Release were their lost in the wilderness years.

[Disco.]

Bilingual is excellent.

[Dreamland]

Footsteps is execrable, although “waves against a ramshackle pier” is a brilliant lyric. Bilingual was their first real miss-step (all of you Absolutely fabulous haters are dead wrong), but Nightlife is their nadir. It speaks to how talented they are that we still got a few good songs out of it, but the ‘80s genius is well behind us.

Thank god for Release, reinvention, and finally the Fundamental-onward second wind of brilliance.

It’s really not. Nightlife is an excellent album, packed full of great songs. It’s in my top 5 PSB albums.