Documentary: PSB on BBC

April 1, 2016 12:38 AM

BBC Radio 2 presents a 4-hour, 4-part career retrospective of Pet Shop Boys. The first two hours, Chart (Part 1, Part 2) cover their 11 main studio albums released during their 28-year relationship with the Parlophone music label. Hour three, Collaborate, covers their forays outside of pop music into musical theater, silent film scoring, ballet, and even a BBC Proms classical music piece. The final hour, The Pop Kids [which deviates from PSB naming conventions in ways that annoy me deeply -ed] looks at their most recent recordings, both done for their own label, X2.

Neil and Chris are releasing a new album, Super, which has already had a few tracks released -- Inner Sanctum, The Pop Kids, and Happiness. Remixes can also be found at PSB's YouTube channel.

posted by hippybear (14 comments total)

What have I...
What have I...
What have I done to deserve this?

My weekend was just made awesome. I love the Pet Shop Boys and had no idea there was a new album. And REMIXES!!

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this!!!
posted by zarq at 5:52 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't really love their later stuff, but Please and Actually are still among my favorite albums.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:00 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

"The Pop Kids" really spoke to me when it came out, though as Paul Cornell just said on Twitter, this probably isn't a rare occasion for a certain subsection of 40 somethings.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:47 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

o hippybear how I love thee
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:12 AM on April 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

PSB are the only band that manages (for me) to keep being fresh while not alienating me by changing their sound too much. It's a fine line to walk, but I think they manage to do it well. It doesn't hurt that I've been knee deep in their remix scene since day one, so they have a less defined sound than other bands from that era do.

I need more hours in the day - TFA, Super, and now all this? A bright spot in an otherwise annoying April 1st.
posted by Kyol at 8:35 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

and I, my lord

may I comment nothing?
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:10 AM on April 1, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear.
posted by praemunire at 9:25 AM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Their "Always on My Mind" video starred Joss Ackland as the back seat passenger. Ackland was also in their film "It Couldn't Happen Here." Wikipedia: "Several years later, he claimed in an interview with the Radio Times that he appeared with the band purely because his grandchildren liked their music."

Ackland is now 88, and IMDb lists his number of acting roles at 191.
posted by zarq at 9:56 AM on April 1, 2016

Now if I could just get in a time machine and go back to Behaviour. and being made to feel world-weary and wistful beyond my years by the lyrics of a pop song instead of world-weary and wistful by actual lived life. This must be the place I waited years to leave indeed.
posted by blucevalo at 11:50 AM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

As an 11-year-old girl in rural Denmark, I don't think I was ever the target audience for PSB but I loved them. Actually was the first album I ever bought - I'd pour over the lyrics and trying to decipher them the best I could. I kept loving them, but never with the same ferocity. It's only looking back decades later that I realised that everything that is me today started with Pet Shop Boys. All the art, books, music, films, and culture - PSB was the gateway to all those things.

And if that nostalgic realisation isn't the epitome of a Pet Shop Boys song, then I don't know what is.

Thank you, Neil and Chris.
posted by kariebookish at 12:13 PM on April 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Several years later, he claimed in an interview with the Radio Times that he appeared with the band purely because his grandchildren liked their music."

If I'm not mistaken, that was also his explanation for appearing in the Wyld Stallyns biopic Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:35 PM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well I know what I'm listening to this weekend.

deviates from PSB naming conventions in ways that annoy me deeply

Yes it does! Could they not have titled it "Now", for example?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:40 PM on April 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Why do mansplainers like the PSB?

Actually....
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 11:39 PM on April 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

I still haven't been able to sit down and enjoy the documentaries that are the main chunk of this post, but I just had to come somewhere to say this morning that Super is superb and exactly the music I need in my life right now, which has very often been the case in the long career of the Pet Shop Boys, their album releases, and my relationship with them.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:32 AM on April 4, 2016 [1 favorite]