Pet Shop Boys Community

Undertaker wrote:

Eldritch wrote:Tomorrow's World was indeed decent but also very slight and curiously rushed for an album which was released after a four-year-hiatus. Plus let's not forget that Daniel Miller also binned their first bunch of demos, so the relative tightening in the quality control department could probably be credited to him.

It would be interesting to hear those songs that were deemed not good enough. I wonder if any actually made the album in the end, considering FrankMusik basically became a band member and completely overhauled everything. To me, it's a decent album but not really Erasure sounding at all.

Maybe the songs that were binned, stayed binned. There were hardly any b-sides or bonus tracks, considering they released a hell of a lot of songs on the double cd and all the singles. Most were remixes though. That's why i find it hard to understand that a 5 year wait basically lead to 32 minutes of new music.

I wouldn't say FrankMusik became a band member, he merely performed his job as the album producer. Judging from the three demos on the Tomorrow's World bonus disc, Andy and Vince put together a solid set of fully formed demos; they were then handed over to FrankMusik to polish and enhance them. Not unlike what Neil and Chris do with their recent demos. So, I would disagree that Tomorrow's World comes across as a FrankMusik/Andy Bell collaboration rather than a proper Erasure album. He took the demos and modernised them without losing the idiosyncrasies of Vince's sound.

What is disappointing is the rather insubstantial nature of the album, it is disappointing that after 5 years we get only 32 minutes of music. It may seem somewhat arbitrary to complain about the albums length, but the point is, if you're going to make an album of that nature, you need to eliminate all the filler, otherwise it doesn't work. Unfortunately, for Tomorrow's World, it doesn't do that, and although I think it's a good album, it's let down by 2 or 3 mediocre tracks. It's something you can't get away with when its a 32 minute nine track album.

To echo Undertaker's point about the lack of bonus tracks, I was also disappointed with the meagre amount of b-sides, there does seem to be a sense that Vince is nowhere near as prolific in his songwriting as he used to be. They just seem to do enough, and that's it, and because they live so far apart, it's not practical for them to get together to write a couple of new songs for the a single release. Compare this to their incredible output during the Chorus era; every single was loaded with great remixes and an array of high quality b-sides. It just makes the sparse nature of their releases all the more disappointing; mediocre remixes aren't really an enjoyable substitute. Admittedly, it's probably a little naive to expect anything more given that Vince is now a family man and his main priorities now lay elsewhere.

I hope we do get another Erasure album, as Tomorrow's World was a good, solid album and a return to form after the dreadful career low of Light At The End of The World. I still think that they've got another great album in them. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the last proper album we ever saw from them.

Frequency wrote:

Undertaker wrote:

Eldritch wrote:Tomorrow's World was indeed decent but also very slight and curiously rushed for an album which was released after a four-year-hiatus. Plus let's not forget that Daniel Miller also binned their first bunch of demos, so the relative tightening in the quality control department could probably be credited to him.

It would be interesting to hear those songs that were deemed not good enough. I wonder if any actually made the album in the end, considering FrankMusik basically became a band member and completely overhauled everything. To me, it's a decent album but not really Erasure sounding at all.

Maybe the songs that were binned, stayed binned. There were hardly any b-sides or bonus tracks, considering they released a hell of a lot of songs on the double cd and all the singles. Most were remixes though. That's why i find it hard to understand that a 5 year wait basically lead to 32 minutes of new music.

I wouldn't say FrankMusik became a band member, he merely performed his job as the album producer. Judging from the three demos on the Tomorrow's World bonus disc, Andy and Vince put together a solid set of fully formed demos; they were then handed over to FrankMusik to polish and enhance them. Not unlike what Neil and Chris do with their recent demos. So, I would disagree that Tomorrow's World comes across as a FrankMusik/Andy Bell collaboration rather than a proper Erasure album. He took the demos and modernised them without losing the idiosyncrasies of Vince's sound.

What is disappointing is the rather insubstantial nature of the album, it is disappointing that after 5 years we get only 32 minutes of music. It may seem somewhat arbitrary to complain about the albums length, but the point is, if you're going to make an album of that nature, you need to eliminate all the filler, otherwise it doesn't work. Unfortunately, for Tomorrow's World, it doesn't do that, and although I think it's a good album, it's let down by 2 or 3 mediocre tracks. It's something you can't get away with when its a 32 minute nine track album.

To echo Undertaker's point about the lack of bonus tracks, I was also disappointed with the meagre amount of b-sides, there does seem to be a sense that Vince is nowhere near as prolific in his songwriting as he used to be. They just seem to do enough, and that's it, and because they live so far apart, it's not practical for them to get together to write a couple of new songs for the a single release. Compare this to their incredible output during the Chorus era; every single was loaded with great remixes and an array of high quality b-sides. It just makes the sparse nature of their releases all the more disappointing; mediocre remixes aren't really an enjoyable substitute. Admittedly, it's probably a little naive to expect anything more given that Vince is now a family man and his main priorities now lay elsewhere.

I hope we do get another Erasure album, as Tomorrow's World was a good, solid album and a return to form after the dreadful career low of Light At The End of The World. I still think that they've got another great album in them. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the last proper album we ever saw from them.

Some good points there. Thing is, Vince & Martin Gore are releasing a 10 cd box set next month. That's what makes me think he would rather put his time into other things. Ten cd's is a lot of music, yet there were hardly any bonus tracks for the TW era.

Undertaker wrote:Thing is, Vince & Martin Gore are releasing a 10 cd box set next month.

Are you sure about this? A quick Google search provides no information about this anywhere.

Yeah, I can't find anything on google either. You got a link for that, Undertaker? a 10CD box set would be pretty damn impressive. That's a hell of a lot of content.

EDIT : Found it, though it's not Clarke and Gore, it's Clarke and Ware.

http://www.side-line.com/news_comments. ... 10_0_2_0_C

Frequency wrote:Yeah, I can't find anything on google either. You got a link for that, Undertaker? a 10CD box set would be pretty damn impressive. That's a hell of a lot of content.

EDIT : Found it, though it's not Clarke and Gore, it's Clarke and Ware.

http://www.side-line.com/news_comments. ... 10_0_2_0_C

Oh yes, I have heard about that one. The 2 CD's they have released are pretty boring ambient installation doodling -- this is more of the same, probably. But still, yes, Erasure seems nowadays just one of Vince's hobbies.

Sorry, Clark and Ware. Must have pressed the wrong button

Eldritch wrote:

Undertaker wrote:Thing is, Vince & Martin Gore are releasing a 10 cd box set next month.

Are you sure about this? A quick Google search provides no information about this anywhere.

Sorry, Clark and Ware. Must have pressed the wrong button

One wonders what may have been had Vince retired Erasure after I Say, I Say, I Say. After a certain point in time it's clear that Vince and Andy never really challenged each other to scale the heights of their earlier work. It would have been interesting to see if a new collaboration would have rekindled that spark; that said, there are still absolute classics post 1994, and the Erasure album is an underrated work. I just see a huge chasm in the quality of Andy's lyrics after I Say, I Say, I Say.

Well, Erasure just may be a novelty or hobby for both Andy & Vince. I heard that Andy is working on a third solo album.

Frequency wrote:What is disappointing is the rather insubstantial nature of the album, it is disappointing that after 5 years we get only 32 minutes of music. It may seem somewhat arbitrary to complain about the albums length, but the point is, if you're going to make an album of that nature, you need to eliminate all the filler, otherwise it doesn't work. Unfortunately, for Tomorrow's World, it doesn't do that, and although I think it's a good album, it's let down by 2 or 3 mediocre tracks. It's something you can't get away with when its a 32 minute nine track album.

Nice poin: if you release a 9 tracks album you have to be sure that all the 9 tracks are really good.

To echo Undertaker's point about the lack of bonus tracks, I was also disappointed with the meagre amount of b-sides, there does seem to be a sense that Vince is nowhere near as prolific in his songwriting as he used to be.

Quite strange: they worked on this album for so long and they released only 13-14 songs and no more...

I hope we do get another Erasure album, as Tomorrow's World was a good, solid album and a return to form after the dreadful career low of Light At The End of The World. I still think that they've got another great album in them. However, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the last proper album we ever saw from them.

I think that they will work again as Erasure but now they will not run no more to make an album, they will work on their solo project and every 4-5 years they will make an album and a tour.

Erasure are apparently writing and recording a new album for the end of the year. It will be self produced.

It's a Christmas album and will me made up of new and old Christmas songs.

I can't wait for this...

What's the state of play with the Erasure fora? Is pughie still hosting a site?

He has a 4rum

http://erasure4rum.com/

glassAngel wrote:The PSB will release a new album, "Electric", in june. That´s their second new record in only 9 months!
So, what is their secret? Andy and Vince could learn from them ,maybe

pughie the pughster wrote: If they have nothing else to do,Does Neil make solo albums?,is Chris making a DJ/dance album.....a Christmas album,
remixing?

burt wrote:But are the PSB really big anymore? their last album sank without trace after its first week and none of the singles went top 40 and that was after appearing at the Olyimpic Closing Ceramony playing to a worldwide TV audience of billions.?