Pet Shop Boys Community

I think everyone thinks here the strategy of Parlophone has been successful.

What a year! The Dreamwold Tour live on concerts, festivals and on cinemas, songs from PSB in two famous movies a new album, an extended version of the new album with demos and new songs, 5 singles (one of them with a double A-side), 5 videos, a lot of remixes, a lot of b-sides, a lot of interviews everywhere, conferences with the public after listening the album for the first time, extreme support from Radio 2 (with the singles on the A-list, with a full ranking of the best PSB songs, with more interviews and the concert of Radio 2 in the Park, apart from the concert for BBC Sounds), support of Radio 6, suport from BBC 1 with the documentary of Imagine and the performances in Strictly Come Dancing, MTV's performance and MTV Award, Artist and Manager Award, the advert, etc. Neil even had time to sing in the song Zero Hour.

The effort was planning with the first two singles and then with the last one (a double A-side with a cover version). I think PSB were thinking about The Dark End of the Street or All the Young Dudes to be single material and they decided the song from Bowie was better because of the connection with New London Boy.

What about the medley from "Strictly"?, maybe they could give that song for the fans in the future on Annually or with the Christmas card.

Is this is the end of Nonetheless campaign?, maybe. It looks like this is the last single. But there is something strange here. Now it is Christmas time and I think they should use "Schlager" for a performance on a TV show or whatever. At the end this is a Christmas song and I think they should use it for Christmas in some way, let's see what happens.

Please. For love of all things holy and the little baby Jesus himself, please stop banging on about Schlager being a single.

tottenhammattspurs wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:36 pm Please. For love of all things holy and the little baby Jesus himself, please stop banging on about Schlager being a single.

I didn't say that!

It's not going to be a single and maybe it doesn't deserve to be a single but I think it deserves to be performing for Christmas time on TV or wherever. It's strange to write a song like that and then you don't use it on Christmas time.

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:32 pm I think PSB were thinking about The Dark End of the Street or All the Young Dudes to be single material and they decided the song from Bowie was better because of the connection with New London Boy.

Show your workings.....

dylanww73 wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:43 pm

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:32 pm I think PSB were thinking about The Dark End of the Street or All the Young Dudes to be single material and they decided the song from Bowie was better because of the connection with New London Boy.

Show your workings.....

I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

Schlager also isn't a Christmas song - the line is "it's always Christmas or the sound of summer in the Schlager hit parade", implying that it is in fact neither in the real world (and by the same logic you could say it was a summer song). It also doesn't sound at all festive, and the lyrics are strange and allegorical. (I love it, by the way.)

Ramzy wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 10:48 pm Schlager also isn't a Christmas song - the line is "it's always Christmas or the sound of summer in the Schlager hit parade", implying that it is in fact neither in the real world (and by the same logic you could say it was a summer song). It also doesn't sound at all festive, and the lyrics are strange and allegorical. (I love it, by the way.)

I see what you mean but the sound has the typical Christmas vibe. Of course the song fits perfectly with this time of the year.

yeah, Schlager isn't exactly a "nice" festive song, far from it

Singing those lyrics to a Christmas audience would probably get a few unwanted WTF headlines

Not worth it

Schlager could be a good Christmas single. Why not.

Just because a song uses the word "Christmas" doesn't make it a Christmas song. Schlager Hit Parade is all about using seasonal jollity to cover up past atrocities. Yeah! Let's dance to THAT around the ol' Tannenbaum!

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 9:12 pm

dylanww73 wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:43 pm

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:32 pm I think PSB were thinking about The Dark End of the Street or All the Young Dudes to be single material and they decided the song from Bowie was better because of the connection with New London Boy.

Show your workings.....

I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

The Boys chose to cover Always on My Mind for an Elvis tribute show - at this point they weren't deciding between this and a Beatles song!!!

Sandy Shaw wrote:

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 9:12 pm

dylanww73 wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:43 pm Show your workings.....

I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

The Boys chose to cover Always on My Mind for an Elvis tribute show - at this point they weren't deciding between this and a Beatles song!!!

I think Nickname is mixing up Always on my mind and Go West. Neil and Chris were originally considering performing The Beatles’ The Fool On The Hill at their Hacienda concert in 1992, but instead opted for Go West, at Chris’s instigation.

Dog wrote: Sun 24 Nov 2024, 9:57 am

Sandy Shaw wrote:

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 9:12 pm

I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

The Boys chose to cover Always on My Mind for an Elvis tribute show - at this point they weren't deciding between this and a Beatles song!!!

I think Nickname is mixing up Always on my mind and Go West. Neil and Chris were originally considering performing The Beatles’ The Fool On The Hill at their Hacienda concert in 1992, but instead opted for Go West, at Chris’s instigation.

Oh yes, I remember reading about that now. Missing the Hacienda event was one of those ''kicking myself'' moments - but too late now!

Sandy Shaw wrote: Sun 24 Nov 2024, 9:52 am

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 9:12 pm

dylanww73 wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 8:43 pm

Show your workings.....

I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

The Boys chose to cover Always on My Mind for an Elvis tribute show - at this point they weren't deciding between this and a Beatles song!!!

There was another option but obviously they went for the song from Elvis because of the show.

Nickname wrote:

Sandy Shaw wrote: Sun 24 Nov 2024, 9:52 am

Nickname wrote: Sat 23 Nov 2024, 9:12 pm I said "I think".

The reason I think that way is just because TDEOTT is very well produced and with plenty of ochestral arrangments and details on it. It could have been working like a single perfectly. It's not the first time PSB try to choose between 2 songs to make a cover. When they did Always on my mind, they had to choose between that song and one song from The Beatles. Apart from that, Neil loves NLB and they think was a good song to be single, there is an obvious connection between that song ATYD so I suppose they decided this one was going to be the single.

The Boys chose to cover Always on My Mind for an Elvis tribute show - at this point they weren't deciding between this and a Beatles song!!!

There was another option but obviously they went for the song from Elvis because of the show.

The other option they briefly considered was Elvis’s Baby Let’s Play House.