http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story ... qqqx=1.asp
Perhaps this thread could be used to post any reviews for the cd that you find?
Potemkin Review
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joncool5
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Kris
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Here's a review from Planet Sound, Channel 4 Teletext page 354:
A year ago, a screening of Battleship Potemkin was accompanied by Pet Shop Boys and the Dresden Sinfoniker playing a live soundtrack to the classic film in the middle of Trafalgar Square.
Over 20 years into their career, it was more proof of PSB's grandiose refusal to dumb down.
Not as special without the Square's surroundings, yet the elegant score works well without the film, gently spooky in its own right. Stirring, and the occasional vocals are gorgeous. 7/10
A year ago, a screening of Battleship Potemkin was accompanied by Pet Shop Boys and the Dresden Sinfoniker playing a live soundtrack to the classic film in the middle of Trafalgar Square.
Over 20 years into their career, it was more proof of PSB's grandiose refusal to dumb down.
Not as special without the Square's surroundings, yet the elegant score works well without the film, gently spooky in its own right. Stirring, and the occasional vocals are gorgeous. 7/10
Passion, love, sex, money, violence, religion, injustice and death. More on that story later.
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psb-freak
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I still haven´t heard the album but that´s too little for PSB. It should be at least 9.-
Eldritch
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Eldritch
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Playlouder likes BP a lot, it seems:
The Battleship Potemkin
(Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe soundtrack)
The Pet Shop Boys soundtrack for the Battleship Potemkin is far more worthy of our consideration than the mere opportunity to make snide "hullo sailor" jokes. Aesthetically and musically they've long flirted with totalitarian imagery and sounds, while their arch, theatrical bent perfectly suits the task of soundtracking propaganda. Originally created in collaboration with the Dresdner Sinfoniker Orchestra for a screening in Trafalgar Square, Messrs. Tennant and Lowe have deigned to give us a proper album release. And let us thank them for it, comrades.
For even when listened to in its own right, the Pet Shop Boys' music is among their finest work in years. The string arrangements are suitably grandiose, the electronics subtle and added at just the right moments, and Neil Tennant's occasional vocal touches are judicious.
But of course, when viewed with the film itself, The Pet Shop Boys score comes to life. Sergei Eisenstein's film tells the story of the Potemkin's crew who, fed up with being fed wormy meat, rise up in protest at their officers, led by a sailor called Vakulinchik. In the ensuing melee that leads to the sailors taking control of the ship, Vakulinchik is killed, and his body taken to Odessa, where he's given a posthumous heroes welcome. Crowds flock to see his body as it lies in a tent, but dastardly Cossacks turn up, massacring the civilians, leading to that famous scene with the baby's pram plummeting down a flight of steps, as borrowed for The Untouchables. Of course, this being a propaganda film it's riddled with signifiers - revolutionary leader Vakulinchik sports a suspiciously Stalinesque moustache, while the sinister ship's priest is all Rasputin hair and lunacy, and the ship's officers possess shrewy, gimlet eyes. Still, given the era it is executed with a degree of subtlety, and Eisenstein's cinematography is superbly evocative, and rendered all the more powerful through Tennant and Lowe's superlative score.
Luke Turner
The Battleship Potemkin
(Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe soundtrack)
The Pet Shop Boys soundtrack for the Battleship Potemkin is far more worthy of our consideration than the mere opportunity to make snide "hullo sailor" jokes. Aesthetically and musically they've long flirted with totalitarian imagery and sounds, while their arch, theatrical bent perfectly suits the task of soundtracking propaganda. Originally created in collaboration with the Dresdner Sinfoniker Orchestra for a screening in Trafalgar Square, Messrs. Tennant and Lowe have deigned to give us a proper album release. And let us thank them for it, comrades.
For even when listened to in its own right, the Pet Shop Boys' music is among their finest work in years. The string arrangements are suitably grandiose, the electronics subtle and added at just the right moments, and Neil Tennant's occasional vocal touches are judicious.
But of course, when viewed with the film itself, The Pet Shop Boys score comes to life. Sergei Eisenstein's film tells the story of the Potemkin's crew who, fed up with being fed wormy meat, rise up in protest at their officers, led by a sailor called Vakulinchik. In the ensuing melee that leads to the sailors taking control of the ship, Vakulinchik is killed, and his body taken to Odessa, where he's given a posthumous heroes welcome. Crowds flock to see his body as it lies in a tent, but dastardly Cossacks turn up, massacring the civilians, leading to that famous scene with the baby's pram plummeting down a flight of steps, as borrowed for The Untouchables. Of course, this being a propaganda film it's riddled with signifiers - revolutionary leader Vakulinchik sports a suspiciously Stalinesque moustache, while the sinister ship's priest is all Rasputin hair and lunacy, and the ship's officers possess shrewy, gimlet eyes. Still, given the era it is executed with a degree of subtlety, and Eisenstein's cinematography is superbly evocative, and rendered all the more powerful through Tennant and Lowe's superlative score.
Luke Turner
Click click drone
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jormis
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Naughty Zoot
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Re: Potemkin Review
All in all, not a bad review. I sense that we're going to see a lot of reviewers saying that they like this but wonder if it might be better served by having the movie's visuals to watch.joncool5 wrote:http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story ... qqqx=1.asp
Perhaps this thread could be used to post any reviews for the cd that you find?
Maybe, if we buy enough of these CDs, the movie's owners will decide to put out a DVD with the PSB ST & the Meisel one.
Let's hope so.
I like it here ~~ wherever it is ...
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Butters
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Here's another from Virgin.net:
http://www.virgin.net/music/albumreview ... emkin.html
http://www.virgin.net/music/albumreview ... emkin.html
Just tax the stupid people!
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joncool5
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jamie1978
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Well, I can see what they mean. Especially NTFT - the cheesy bit at the end where it turns into Red Letter Day is rather showtune. There is something quite Lloyd-Weber about it.Flaffer wrote:no surprise there, as Neil and Chris are still alivejoncool5 wrote: Uncut magazine slagged it off and gave it 2/5, describing 'After All' and 'For Freedom' as showtunes!!
On a seperate note, when is everyone going to accept that NTFT is, well, just awful? Its a dated, dreary, dull, cheesy ballad with quite the most curious ending I think I've ever heard. It would not sound out of place as a Bilingual b-side.
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joncool5
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Another review, from www.new-noise.net
Tennant/Lowe - Battleship Potemkin
By Adrian Cooper
It’s a strange career path. One minute you’re writing for Smash Hits, the next (give or take an odd 20 years) you’re composing a new score for Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Battleship Potemkin'. But that’s exactly what happened to Neil Tennant, with a bit of help from his long-term comedy sidekick Chris Lowe (though whether Pet Shop Boys ever contained either a gag man or a straight man is debatable), Torsten Rasch, Jonathan Stockhammer & the Dresdner Simfoniker. The result – falling somewhere between house, minimalist electro-pop and Walter Carlos’ soundtrack to ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and the background music to CSI: Northumberland – is a brooding and atmospheric take on Eisenstein’s tale of aquatic encapsulation of the communist uprising that may not have you storming the local kebab shop & inspecting the quality of their meat, but should still keep you pleasantly entertained for 68 minutes.
Tennant/Lowe - Battleship Potemkin
By Adrian Cooper
It’s a strange career path. One minute you’re writing for Smash Hits, the next (give or take an odd 20 years) you’re composing a new score for Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Battleship Potemkin'. But that’s exactly what happened to Neil Tennant, with a bit of help from his long-term comedy sidekick Chris Lowe (though whether Pet Shop Boys ever contained either a gag man or a straight man is debatable), Torsten Rasch, Jonathan Stockhammer & the Dresdner Simfoniker. The result – falling somewhere between house, minimalist electro-pop and Walter Carlos’ soundtrack to ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and the background music to CSI: Northumberland – is a brooding and atmospheric take on Eisenstein’s tale of aquatic encapsulation of the communist uprising that may not have you storming the local kebab shop & inspecting the quality of their meat, but should still keep you pleasantly entertained for 68 minutes.
