Pet Shop Boys Community

This has always made me thoughtful. The imaginative "One night in Bangkok" by Murray Head (music and lyrics by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus & Tim Rice) reminds "West End Girls" quite a lot. It's the rhythm and spoken verses which make the songs feel similar. There's something in the structure of both songs that connects them. I can't actually express this in real musical terms, is there someone out there who could?

"One night in Bangkok" video can be watched here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ53sBNBUVA

It can't possibly be that one song could be inspired by the other. They were composed/invented roughly at the same time, and I don't think that Björn and Benny had common meetings with Neil and Chris (if they had, someone let me know!!). Is it just that the time was right for hits sounding like that?

I have never thought of any similarity between these two songs. Just because there are spoken verses in both, it doesn't make them similar. Maybe a little, but as you say, probably "time was right" for this kind of songs.

There is no comparison with the two apart from being in the 80's