"Winner" - the love and hate battle of this forum

[Nickname]

I've been reading other posts talking about this track, so we are going to create a post for it and free another posts related to the new stuff.

[Bulldog]

It was an obvious single, but just like the whole of Elysium, it works much much better as an instrumental (which always puzzled me, as the idea behind the album was 'Neil meets soulful american backing singers' -they were even going to call it "Vocal" at some point!). And the video was unbelievably cheesy.

[jasonjohn]

Polls are never useful when there is so much emphasis and opinion loaded into the answers.

[Oznerol]

I understand that there is something...mmmm...awkward...with the vocal version, but the instrumental is a beautiful and perfect piece of music!!!

[Markpro]

The worst thing lyrically they have EVER written

[boyjohn]

I like the Midnitemen remix, which kind of plays up the silliness of it all.

And we did get "A certain "Je ne sais quoi"" out of it, which is just awesome

[ZiggyPSB]

I think the real battle is between fans of the Pop era 1981-2012 and fans of the Dance era 2013-present.

[NotInvisible]

The thing about PSB is that they often write great songs that don't actually suit them. Winner is actually a decent little pop song that would have been a reasonably sized hit for someone like Take That. Imagine Kylie singing a version and you can see what the song is supposed to be, and in that context it works. But on a Pet Shop Boys record with Neil on vocals... it's awful.

[Drico One]

Winner is the Guantanamo of Elysium; that remote, God-forsaken place where their creativity underwent a process of extraordinary rendition. As far as I'm concerned, it represented the water boarding of my fandom.*

Drico.

*Views expressed may cause offence. Not as much as Winner, though.

[Paninaro]

This song has a special place for me because it came out around the same time I was told I was cured of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. So I can really feel an attachment to the lyrics.

[tucky101]

The thing about PSB is that they often write great songs that don't actually suit them.

I'm amazed Simon cowell has never try to nick it for his X factor winners single

It's even got the ruddy chord change

[Old Soak]

The mistake wasn't releasing the version that became known as the HappySad mix as the prime version on the album - that really is a winner. It's not their best effort, but I really don't think it deserves the level of hate mail it receives.

[Actually]

Winner was fine. Not out of place on the album or indeed for the Olympics.
Move on.

[Pod]

Bloody awful, end of.

[lucienchardon]

I have mixed feelings about this song. I think the album/single version is pretty weak. I would say it is second only to Before as their worst single. On the other hand, I think the Andrew Dawson Extended HappySad Remix is one of the best remixes they've ever put out and I love it. The long version of The Way Through the Woods is brilliant and I also like the video for Winner. So the overall single package was very satisfying for me. Still, I think A Face Like That should have been the lead single from Elysium.