Drico One wrote: Wed 18 Dec 2024, 1:49 pm
I remember buying it after the second single and my first impression of the album opener was: "When is this track actually going to start properly? Has Neil gone on strike?"
On my first listen, shortly after release, 30 seconds in I was so bummed-out: there’s been a terrible labelling/pressing error. My shiny new pet shop boys tape was some kind of classical/opera thing… wtf!? (Obviously wtf wasn’t a thing then). I was already starting to plan my slog back to HMV and exchange it for the right album…
….then 54 seconds in: it’s gonna be alright.
"...Purchase or hire thirty-eight ripe Spongs. Wheel them home, and shoot them. Then simply bake them, and eat them once. The end."
I really enjoyed Chris Pressler's reminisces at the Manchester Q and A, blasting Devices out a Belfast bedroom window to drown out the sound of marching bands on July 12th, I hope that makes the Annually transcript.
(My father is an Orangeman but I enjoy and understand acts of defiance)
Bucky Goldstein wrote: Thu 19 Dec 2024, 8:15 pm
On my first listen, shortly after release, 30 seconds in I was so bummed-out: there’s been a terrible labelling/pressing error. My shiny new pet shop boys tape was some kind of classical/opera thing… wtf!? (Obviously wtf wasn’t a thing then). I was already starting to plan my slog back to HMV and exchange it for the right album…
….then 54 seconds in: it’s gonna be alright.
I'd already heard it. Mulleted Fun House supremo Pat Sharp loved the Pat Sharp Boys and played it on Capital before its release.
Controversial opinon klaxon: Introspective, one of the greatest records of their career, helped to kill their heat.
Actually, it's not an opinion, more a theory.
The imperial phase was likely to end anyway, but I've always had a feeling that Domino dancing - which gets blamed for their commercial decline - was released far too quickly after Heart's slightly unexpected success - number one in April despite being their fifth single in nine months. Three had reached number one, another number two. They were imperious. This was the time for a break of, perhaps, 12-15 months. Instead, they released Domino dancing in September, which was simultaneously too soon and too late. How Pet Shop Boys. Too soon because a new album should really only have followed Heart and Actually after a disappearing act that left us all demanding more. Too late because Domino dancing was a summer song that should have been released in the summer - perhaps of 1989. Instead, they over-exposed themselves with Exposé's producer.
Had they returned in the summer of 1989, there would have been a hunger for them. Instead, people more or less had their fill of them by early autumn 1988. To top it all off, while Domino dancing, Introspective, and Left to my own devices all followed on quickly from Heart in the second half of 1988, we then had to wait another eight months or so for the next single...which was the third single from Introspective, an album we had all, more or less, moved on from by then. Sure, It's alright was great - and a radical improvement over the album version - but it all added up to a bit of a mess campaign-wise.
From being "too new" in September 1988 - over-exposed - to being a bit "too old" in July 1989 with a rehashed third single from an album that was already a bit passé. Neil also started to lose the locks and age. They seemed a little...tired.
Then, having taken an eight-month break at the start of 1989, they then took another 14-month break until September 1990. Their tide, which was always likely to go out on them anyway, was very definitely out by then.
For a band accused of being so "calculating", I'm not sure the planning here was all that smart. The records were great, though.
Drico.
The pale kid that hides in the attic behind his PC...
An interesting point, and I'd never really considered the odd timeline before. Have they ever addressed *why* Introspective and Domino Dancing came out so hot on the heels of Heart? A year between albums isn't that unusual but as you point out Heart was in the upper reaches of the chart until May and then Domino Dancing landed barely four months later, similar to the gap between the previous two singles. Sometimes a surprise release is a great marketing tool. But there's no getting around the fact Domino Dancing did really, weirdly, inexplicably badly for the stage in their career. (Especially considering how much it sounds like a hit!)
It's a question only they or EMI can now answer, I suspect, given Watkins isn't alive. Partly I wonder if the release and success of Always on my mind screwed up the original Actually calendar, which would have concluded with Heart at the end of 1987, and perhaps PSB and Parlophone were by that time committed to the release of an autumn 1988 LP? (Bob Stanley once mentioned that Tiger Bay came out when it did only because Heavenly needed a hit in the 1993/4 tax year - so is it simply possible that Introspective had already been budgeted for and couldn't be moved?)
Drico One wrote:Controversial opinon klaxon: Introspective, one of the greatest records of their career, helped to kill their heat.
Actually, it's not an opinion, more a theory.
The imperial phase was likely to end anyway, but I've always had a feeling that Domino dancing - which gets blamed for their commercial decline - was released far too quickly after Heart's slightly unexpected success - number one in April despite being their fifth single in nine months. Three had reached number one, another number two. They were imperious. This was the time for a break of, perhaps, 12-15 months. Instead, they released Domino dancing in September, which was simultaneously too soon and too late. How Pet Shop Boys. Too soon because a new album should really only have followed Heart and Actually after a disappearing act that left us all demanding more. Too late because Domino dancing was a summer song that should have been released in the summer - perhaps of 1989. Instead, they over-exposed themselves with Exposé's producer.
Had they returned in the summer of 1989, there would have been a hunger for them. Instead, people more or less had their fill of them by early autumn 1988. To top it all off, while Domino dancing, Introspective, and Left to my own devices all followed on quickly from Heart in the second half of 1988, we then had to wait another eight months or so for the next single...which was the third single from Introspective, an album we had all, more or less, moved on from by then. Sure, It's alright was great - and a radical improvement over the album version - but it all added up to a bit of a mess campaign-wise.
From being "too new" in September 1988 - over-exposed - to being a bit "too old" in July 1989 with a rehashed third single from an album that was already a bit passé. Neil also started to lose the locks and age. They seemed a little...tired.
Then, having taken an eight-month break at the start of 1989, they then took another 14-month break until September 1990. Their tide, which was always likely to go out on them anyway, was very definitely out by then.
For a band accused of being so "calculating", I'm not sure the planning here was all that smart. The records were great, though.
Drico.
Neil shared this theory when he spoke at the Oxford Union… “he regretted releasing Introspective so soon after Actually as he felt that the 12" nature of the songs may have put some fans off the band, and that this probably impacted on the sales of Behaviour, the subsequent album which is critically regarded to be the Pet Shop Boys' finest album but commercially one of their least successful.”
Dog wrote: Thu 19 Dec 2024, 7:31 pm
When the single of Left to my own devices came out, my assumption was that the 12 inch mix would be the same as the album version, just as the 12 inch of Domino dancing had been. So I was blown away when I heard The Disco Mix.
Same, I bought the CD single for the b-side and I was expecting the album version. I was surprised to hear I was wrong. Fantastic 12" version.
In an alternate universe, it would have been interesting to see how the Introspective campaign would have fared if they hadn’t released Heart. While it was a four month gap, at the time, it kind of felt Heart was still riding the wave of their Xmas mega-hit. Heart is a fine pop song, but it’s by far the lesser of their no 1s, and I’d argue, the lesser of all Actually’s singles.
If they’d not bought out Heart, would the “thirst” created by finishing ‘87 on a high and then nothing until autumn cause a bigger splash for Domino dancing?
"...Purchase or hire thirty-eight ripe Spongs. Wheel them home, and shoot them. Then simply bake them, and eat them once. The end."
I was a young student, here in New York, and a friend was a fan and bought the album. I remember being extremely perplexed by both the cover art and the nature of the album itself. I wasn’t yet educated about extended versions, 12” mixes, etc. Needless to say, I did not buy the album and didn’t become a die-hard, passionate fan until Discography (my loss).
Yes, Bucky, I think you're on to something there - but Domino dancing would still have needed to come out at least six weeks earlier than it did. But I'm sure they would have managed that if Heart hadn't been released.
I also agree that Heart - which I love as a bubblegum pop gem - is the least significant of the Actually-era singles. The other four are stone-cold classics. I rate Rent as the very best of all their compositions, It's a sin as their greatest lead single, Always on my mind as their greatest cover (just shading the two early 90s classics), and the Dusty duet as, well, their greatest collaboration. That phase was truly imperial.
Interesting to read Neil's theory - which I hadn't really taken any notice of, Dog. I don't think the 12" nature of Introspective excuses Domino dancing's commerical underperformance, though. I think the proximity to Heart was more important and its September release failed to capitalise on its heartbreak-under-the-sun vibe.
Interesting, too, is Ramzy's Always on my mind calendar scramble theory. That single wasn't exactly planned with military precision, and its success - perhaps just as unexpected as that of Heart's - threw a spanner in the works.
We'll never know. I suppose the truth is more prosaic than all of this theorising. Maybe their time in the sun was simply up regardless and they had to make way for Kylie, Bros, and house music.
Drico.
The pale kid that hides in the attic behind his PC...
Regarding Domino Dancing’s timing, I’m not sure it was such a duff move, seasonally. If you’re canny, September can (could? F knows these days) work really well for “summer” singles as long if you’ve serviced them to radio/clubs a month or so earlier.
Tarzan Boy, Don’t leave me this way, Ride on Time, Boom! Shake the room, Saturday night, Barbie Girl… all autumn smashes that the great unwashed would have danced round their handbags to in Tossa Del Mar on their hollybubs. By the time they get home and face the misery of winter, they’re desperate to buy tunes that remind them of better, warmer, fun times.
"...Purchase or hire thirty-eight ripe Spongs. Wheel them home, and shoot them. Then simply bake them, and eat them once. The end."
Disco. wrote: Wed 18 Dec 2024, 4:24 pm
Loved it when it was released, thought the sleeve was fantastic, to this day my favorite album of all time, it’s just outstanding.
And as a side note their bestselling album.
I remember being 13 years old - my older Brother coming whom from a visit to a record store in CPH with a Disco friend, telling me I had to listen to some really great Opera!
I mean seriously...He had tutored me with Rick Astley for years and now Opera No offense...
He played Left to my own devices and when the beat kicked in I was relieved
I had seen PSB in videos etc but first then started to be really interested.
Introspective is a very personal album (so much fun and feelings of all kinds at the same time) - a true masterpiece!
P.s many many years later - I kind of like Rick Astley (he is an amazing singer) and have great respect of Opera thou not a fan.
and played it on Capital before its release.
