Which SMASH single was the most "forgettable"?

[spacewalker]

They have so many singles I sometimes even forget about the 'classic' ones (like DJ Culture).
Anyway I'd go with Somewhere, I can't remember even a second from it to save my life.

[NotInvisible]

I must have had a hallucination about them pimping it during the Olympics then.

You must have. It was West End girls they 'pimped' at the Olympics. Winner was written during the Progress tour, they wanted to write something in that vein. The song lent itself to the single cover. The Olympic timing was coincidental.

Still a terrible PSB track, though.

[jasonjohn]

Well, according to the poll results, there are worse PSB tracks

It’s been a long time coming
We’ve been in the running for so long

... love that bit. It's sweet. Quite a poetic song in parts.

[moxlox]

Oh, Together is the weakest single release. The cliche PSB "by numbers" applies in bucket loads. "We need to generate a song to push this Ultimate best of album". Ultimate clearly being the weakest and most pointless best of release when we already had the sublime PopArt and obviously Discography in the pantheon.

I am going to check and listen to Together now to see if it is indeed pointless....

[markus]

Numb was wrong on so many levels. After suing a person who claimed they didn't write their own music, then paying for a Diane Warren song, still only selling the typical amount singles they did at the time, they were doomed. They did better with Xenomania and Love etc. They should've rejected Numb and demanded a much better song.

[markus]

...and, now with AI when anyone can be Diane Warren, only Neil can be Neil and Chris be Chris.

[NotInvisible]

After suing a person who claimed they didn't write their own music, then paying for a Diane Warren song

Suing someone for claiming they didn't write their own music and singing a song someone else wrote are not mutually exclusive.

[markus]

After suing a person who claimed they didn't write their own music, then paying for a Diane Warren song

Suing someone for claiming they didn't write their own music and singing a song someone else wrote are not mutually exclusive.

How these events are linked is the effort of keeping the Pet shop boys brand in good standing, but achieving the opposite.

[Spittingcat]

Numb is a great song, and Neil gives it an air that few other singers could have. A great pairing.

And Together is far from “PSB by numbers”… a pop song in waltz time is quite daring/risky. There have been plenty since, but few before. And they have tended to be slow numbers. I’m not sure it quite worked, but it wasn’t lazy, or a cliché, or the expected.

[Spittingcat]

Winner was played at the Olympics, when they did a mini-gig outside Buckingham Palace for the UK athletes parade after the event.

[Spittingcat]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19552313

"This is the moment we'll remember every day for the rest of our lives," sang Pet Shop Boys.

Their dramatic stage was the Queen Victoria Memorial, in front of Buckingham Palace, right at the heart of the Olympics and Paralympics host city.

Its steps were filled with athletes from Team and Paralympics GB; above them on the monument's top stood a golden winged victory figure.

The act's performance came at the pinnacle of a love-in between crowds and athletes that started two hours earlier.

It stretched from Mansion House in the City, past St Paul's, along Fleet Street and the Strand to Trafalgar Square and under Admiralty Arch up to the Queen's London residence.

Twenty-one floats of athletes travelled through streets which they described as "unbelievably packed" with people.

IIRC they played Winner, West End Girls & Go West.

[markus]

Numb underwhelmes me, a pastiche. You have to play Aerosmith to get rid of the feeling, but I don't like Aerosmith.

Together however I never get tired of. It's a space you can visit and imagination runs wild there. Keeps you thrilled and puzzled forever. Jekyll and Hyde meet in a song.

[NotInvisible]

How these events are linked is the effort of keeping the Pet shop boys brand in good standing, but achieving the opposite.

I don't think recording a song is part of an effort to keep the brand in good standing, and I don't think Numb did anything negative to their brand except among the few fans who heard it.

[markus]

How these events are linked is the effort of keeping the Pet shop boys brand in good standing, but achieving the opposite.

I don't think recording a song is part of an effort to keep the brand in good standing, and I don't think Numb did anything negative to their brand except among the few fans who heard it.

The requirement from Diane Warren was to release Numb as a single. She obviously thinks highly of her songwriting making such demands, and after delivering 15-20 worldwide superhits, so did Neil and Chris. Why else bother recording a song by someone else, not exactly talentless themselves? The expectations were high after a lot of buzz when Fundamental was released, the reaction was: that's it?! The third single could've been Fugitive if weren't for Diane Warren. Reaching somewhere around 8 in the charts, but without the feel of a career beyond rescue, when the mainstream had left them for good.

[PSBForTheMasses]

Do you mean the Americanization of Neil’s vocals? I believe the lyrics to Numb are Diane Warren’s.

No, the subsequent Americanisation on tracks like I don't wanna.

At the time of Fundamental, I had read a review that Neil pronounced the word "Perfect" at the end of Integral in the way that Americans pronounce it and the reviewer argued that the PSB was still yearning for a top 40 in the USA, Was that true? I mean the pronunciation part.