Pet Shop Boys Community

*This post should be read with an "each to their own" attitude

Maybe Neil & Chris were tokin on the sweet mary jane at the time because I cannot think of any logical reason why PSB would come up with this CRAP. Sure, a small percentage may consider this album deep, artistic etc, but myself, I can't see it. Why on earth did PSB adopt that terrible "guitar-based" sound? It's like The Beatles coming up with some hardcore dance track or something...or Barry Manilow rapping. Interesting how there's only one dancy track on the entire album, Chris must have pulled out all the stops to get S.I.A on there, thats for sure. The PSB could have potentially ruined their career with this lacklustre, dull album...I will say though, it's aptly titled it's nothing more than a "Release", is it? A PSB mistake that needs to be forgotten, I think. Despite what fans of this album might think, this album was not warmly received by fans. I think the boys have "learned their lesson" so to speak, and Fundamental definitely seems to be upbeat and dancy from what I've read about it. I hope to never see Neil trying to act like a guitar-toting minstrel ala London video ever again....Guitars+PSB= 4#)($*#)(*!!!!!!!!!!

Home and Dry: cutesy pop, listenable I suppose

I Get Along: PSB meets Beatles meets Oasis. OOPS - Oasis live and breathe to copy The Beatles, so they're one and the same! My bad. It's great to know that Neil gets along gets along, but this is definite b-side quality

Birthday Boy - umm okay, not a very PSB sound at all...dull, lifeless


Email - Aww how sweet. B-side, anyone?


London - I'll concede with this one. It isnt all that bad, and for some reason the guitars don't seem to infuriate me on this track. ONLY this track, mind.

Love Is A Catastrophe - enough for any manic depressive to have a suicide trigger. I'm sure many have pulled out the ol' knives after hearing this number. Lyrics are well written and very emotive though, I'll give it that.

Here - obviously Chris struggling to bring his electronic sounds into the fray. Thanks for trying to save us at least, Chris my man. We all know Neil and Johnny were ganging up on you.


The Night I Fell In Love - perverted, disturbing lyrics. Totally avoidable. This is not album quality!


Samurai In Autumn - again, I bet we have Chris to thank for this track being snuck on here. This is PSB the way it oughta be.

You Choose - another one for the depressed!

I know those tracks aren't in order but it's not as if I listen to the damn thing apart from "Here" and "Samurai In Autumn"

Well this put a smile on my face I wonder why .

It's not a 'crap' album as such...it was just misguided. At the same time I sort of like the idea that they made an album like this.

But you're right about The Night I Fell In Love. Not really perverted but certainly a big bag of shit sprinkled with sugar.

OK, the artist in me is griping to come out. But before I go any further, I should put out the disclaimer that EVERYONE IS ENTITILED TO THEIR OWN OPINION.

And here's mine....

When I was in college and critiquing art work, I learned that saying something sucks isn't really enough. Enquiring mind want to know! WHY does it suck? WHY should've a particular song been a b-side? Some of the posters here really know how to analyze the ''why's" and ''because's"-YAY!
Others seem barely able to compose a coherent sentence (maybe it's more the english teacher coming out instead of the artist... )

For being fans who claim they love the Boys, some of the remarks I'm reading are really scathing, and just plain over the top; empty statements without any details to back them up. If I were Neil and/or Chris, I think I'd eventually adopt a ''well, just bugger off then" attitude toward the fans. How bad would THAT suck for the rest of us?

"Release" was just so different from what they normally do, I don't think some of us were able to look at it AS being completely different and make that jump. It was a style they wanted to try, and I think they succeeded like they always seem to do. I would suggest that if anyone out there can get a chance to hear the interview CD called ''Re: Release" to do so. It may shed some light on why they made Release the way they did.

As artists, they have the right to be experimental. If you think the experiment failed, at least try to say WHY you think it failed instead of just putting a "This sucks" stamp on it.

OK, my rant is done for now....

like it or hate it but out of all their releases it is the only one really set apart because they tried something new. any group that has been around for a long time that doesnt shake things up a bit in their catalog of CD releases and go for something a bit different seems to me like a car stuck in one gear.

oh about petshopgirlxxx comment about chris trying to save release by putting on here and samurai thats the thing, I was reading a literally I believe and neil was the one who wanted release to be more electronic while chris was saying 'this cant go on and that cant go on" because chris was the one sticking to the slower more guitar based idea.

personally I LOVE email.

Here, here Glennjridge!!!! I TOTALLY agree with the ''car stuck in one gear" analogy!!!

Seems like we made the jump!

I thought it was well written too (she was one of the people I meant when I said ''YAY"!).

Though I have to wonder, wouldn't the Pet Shop Boys know better than anyone as to what the Pet Shop Boys are all about?

...Sucks!

Release suffers in comparison to Behaviour but that's hardly surprising because the latter is the greatest album ever. It's not a huge departure for them either - Birthday boy is as world-weary as It couldn't happen here and I get along no more jangly than Hit and miss.

[quote="Broooklyn"]...Sucks![/quote]

Missed the earlier rant, I take it? That's ok- I can live with the burden of being right a lot of the time...

[quote="Janet Street-Porter"]Release suffers in comparison to Behaviour but that's hardly surprising because the latter is the greatest album ever. [/quote]

No arguement from me that it's a great album, but what makes it great? Yeah, definitely missed the earlier rant...

The Night I Fell In Love

Really awful song, production and lyrics.