The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

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Nickname
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The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#1 Post by Nickname »

PLEASE

- West End Girls
- Opportunities
- Why don't we live together?
- Suburbia (with the intro of the full horror mix)

ACTUALLY

It's a sin
What have I done to deserve this?
One More Chance (there is a single version of it)
Always on my Mind (included in Introspective)
Heart

INTROSPECTIVE

I'm not Scared (a duet with Eight Wonder with the single version)
Domino Dancing
Left to my own Devices
It's alright

BEHAVIOUR

So Hard
How can you expect to be taking seriously? (video version)
Where the streets have no name/I can't take my eyes off you
Jealousy

DISCOGRAPHY

DJ Culture (only one single for Discography)

VERY

Shameless (it should be included like the 1st song of Very like it was planned and single)
Go West
Can you forgive her?
The Theater
One Thing Leads to Another (I think it could have been with an edit version)

BILINGUAL

Metamorphosis
Se a vida e
Single
A red letter day
Somewhere

NIGHTLIFE

I don't know what you want but I can't give it any more
New York City Boy
Drunk

RELEASE
I get along (no more singles)

FUNDAMENTAL

The Sodom and Gomorrah Show (there is a single version of it)
Integral (original album version)
I'm with Stupid
Minimal

YES

Pandemonium
Love, etc
All over the world

ELYSIUM

Winner (just for the olympics)

ELECTRIC

Love is a bourgeois construct
Thursday
Vocal

SUPER

Undertow
Burn
Say it to me

HOTSPOT

Dreamland
Monkey Business

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#2 Post by telys »

Suburbia is a single off the Disco album.

Actually should've seen King's Cross as a single after the big fire and It couldn't happen here a single from the film.

They could've pumped out 2-3 more singles from Very. That's really where they made the wrong decisions. Putting out Disco2 and Paninaro '95 instead of more Very singles and a muscled Relentless or a killer live version of It's a sin/I will survive so that "arenas attained them and fame sustained them" well into the Bilingual era
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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#3 Post by TallThinMan »

telys wrote: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 9:57 pmActually should've seen King's Cross as a single after the big fire and It couldn't happen here a single from the film.
Yes, repurposing King’s Cross to cash in on the tragedy would definitely have been the way to go. Shame on them for not having more commercial nous.
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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#4 Post by Patrick Bateman »

Metamorphosis lol

nickname, you are obsessed with this mythical reality where PSB releasing *checks* The Sodom and Gomorrah Show would have changed their commercial fortunes. Short of a track being used in the right context within a massive show like Stranger Things, that's it. No more hits, even if they had released *checks* The Theatre in 1994.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#5 Post by Nickname »

Patrick Bateman wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 12:40 am Metamorphosis lol

nickname, you are obsessed with this mythical reality where PSB releasing *checks* The Sodom and Gomorrah Show would have changed their commercial fortunes. Short of a track being used in the right context within a massive show like Stranger Things, that's it. No more hits, even if they had released *checks* The Theatre in 1994.
The Sodom and Gomorrah Show and Integral (album versions) are really strong tracks.

I'm with Stupid was Top 10. Don't you really believe TSAGS and Integral could make it better?. Of course, both are bigger tracks. At that time, they could get a Top 5 easily even better.

Of course, I can not prove it but I think both tracks had been working perfectly on this GH tour.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#6 Post by domino »

I'm with Patrick Bateman at this discussion. Don’t forget the fact that Neil and Chris aren't the centre of the music industry. They wanted One And One Make Five as well as TSAGS as singles but EMI/Parlophone took that ideas down. That were the two examples I remember from the FL books. There have to be plenty of muted single choices. Furthermore, you don’t have to forget that society (especially the youth) decides the charts. I doubt that Release would've done any better if Home And Dry wouldn’t have been a single (just an example).

I agree with you that some other single choices could've been made but this is history now. It is what it is …
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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#7 Post by Drico One »

Very was all about the first two singles. After that, not much really. People get carried away with the bubblegum bounciness of that album, but in terms of singles there was little to mine after Go West. If anything, they dragged out the Very singles campaign by releasing five instead of four and inserting Absolutely Fabulous in to the mix to boot.

I remember hearing Very for the first time and feeling that it lacked hit singles. I was right - but then pretty much everything they released after Go West was not a hit single in any meaningful way. Yes, they still made the top 10 for a week, but it was diminishing returns in comparison to the past (as it had to be, really, for an ageing pop band). The law of gravity took over - as it does for everybody. Sooner or later, this happens to everyone.

Truth be told, their greatest hits are, basically, the first 16 tracks on Discography plus the first two singles from Very. You can argue for Se A Vida E and New York City Boy and any number of the multitude of "loyal fan base" top ten statistical aberrations they had from 1996 to 2006. But they were commercially redundant, in the singles chart, after Go West. Just like I was never 21 again when I became 22.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#8 Post by Nickname »

domino wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 8:35 am I'm with Patrick Bateman at this discussion. Don’t forget the fact that Neil and Chris aren't the centre of the music industry. They wanted One And One Make Five as well as TSAGS as singles but EMI/Parlophone took that ideas down. That were the two examples I remember from the FL books. There have to be plenty of muted single choices. Furthermore, you don’t have to forget that society (especially the youth) decides the charts. I doubt that Release would've done any better if Home And Dry wouldn’t have been a single (just an example).

I agree with you that some other single choices could've been made but this is history now. It is what it is …
I love OAOMF (specially the mistery parts of it, love it!) but I don't see a clear single here. With TSAGS, I have no doubt (neither do PSB). PSB have somewhere a single version of the song, I could listen to in on the official web site.

I remind you the problems with the song were the lyrics, not the song itself. They thought Radio 2 wouldn't play the song because of the word "Sodom".

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#9 Post by Nickname »

Drico One wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 11:14 am Very was all about the first two singles. After that, not much really. People get carried away with the bubblegum bounciness of that album, but in terms of singles there was little to mine after Go West. If anything, they dragged out the Very singles campaign by releasing five instead of four and inserting Absolutely Fabulous in to the mix to boot.

I remember hearing Very for the first time and feeling that it lacked hit singles. I was right - but then pretty much everything they released after Go West was not a hit single in any meaningful way. Yes, they still made the top 10 for a week, but it was diminishing returns in comparison to the past (as it had to be, really, for an ageing pop band). The law of gravity took over - as it does for everybody. Sooner or later, this happens to everyone.

Truth be told, their greatest hits are, basically, the first 16 tracks on Discography plus the first two singles from Very. You can argue for Se A Vida E and New York City Boy and any number of the multitude of "loyal fan base" top ten statistical aberrations they had from 1996 to 2006. But they were commercially redundant, in the singles chart, after Go West. Just like I was never 21 again when I became 22.

Drico.
I'm agree. But Sameless could have been a hit single too. It was very anthemic.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#10 Post by Drico One »

Nickname wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 1:56 pm
Drico One wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 11:14 am Very was all about the first two singles. After that, not much really. People get carried away with the bubblegum bounciness of that album, but in terms of singles there was little to mine after Go West. If anything, they dragged out the Very singles campaign by releasing five instead of four and inserting Absolutely Fabulous in to the mix to boot.

I remember hearing Very for the first time and feeling that it lacked hit singles. I was right - but then pretty much everything they released after Go West was not a hit single in any meaningful way. Yes, they still made the top 10 for a week, but it was diminishing returns in comparison to the past (as it had to be, really, for an ageing pop band). The law of gravity took over - as it does for everybody. Sooner or later, this happens to everyone.

Truth be told, their greatest hits are, basically, the first 16 tracks on Discography plus the first two singles from Very. You can argue for Se A Vida E and New York City Boy and any number of the multitude of "loyal fan base" top ten statistical aberrations they had from 1996 to 2006. But they were commercially redundant, in the singles chart, after Go West. Just like I was never 21 again when I became 22.

Drico.
I'm agree. But Sameless could have been a hit single too. It was very anthemic.
Possibly, yes. But at what cost? By 1993, they were well past the time they could release a single that was already on an album, remix it, and market it into the top 10 for anything more than a week. If they released Shameless, would Can You Forgive Her? have spent two weeks in the top 10 after the release of Very? It's all conjecture, but I don't think there was anything they could have done to have added another megahit to their catalogue post Go West other than, of course, releasing One In A Million with Take That as was mooted at the time and, apparently, vetoed by Chris.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#11 Post by Nickname »

Drico One wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 2:52 pm
Nickname wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 1:56 pm
Drico One wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 11:14 am Very was all about the first two singles. After that, not much really. People get carried away with the bubblegum bounciness of that album, but in terms of singles there was little to mine after Go West. If anything, they dragged out the Very singles campaign by releasing five instead of four and inserting Absolutely Fabulous in to the mix to boot.

I remember hearing Very for the first time and feeling that it lacked hit singles. I was right - but then pretty much everything they released after Go West was not a hit single in any meaningful way. Yes, they still made the top 10 for a week, but it was diminishing returns in comparison to the past (as it had to be, really, for an ageing pop band). The law of gravity took over - as it does for everybody. Sooner or later, this happens to everyone.

Truth be told, their greatest hits are, basically, the first 16 tracks on Discography plus the first two singles from Very. You can argue for Se A Vida E and New York City Boy and any number of the multitude of "loyal fan base" top ten statistical aberrations they had from 1996 to 2006. But they were commercially redundant, in the singles chart, after Go West. Just like I was never 21 again when I became 22.

Drico.
I'm agree. But Sameless could have been a hit single too. It was very anthemic.
Possibly, yes. But at what cost? By 1993, they were well past the time they could release a single that was already on an album, remix it, and market it into the top 10 for anything more than a week. If they released Shameless, would Can You Forgive Her? have spent two weeks in the top 10 after the release of Very? It's all conjecture, but I don't think there was anything they could have done to have added another megahit to their catalogue post Go West other than, of course, releasing One In A Million with Take That as was mooted at the time and, apparently, vetoed by Chris.

Drico.
I think Shameless was better than Can You Forgive Her? and could make it better. The anthemic part of PSB worked well on charts at that time. CYFGH? was a good third single.

I didn't know about that anecdote with Take That and OIAM.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#12 Post by minimal »

I agree with Drico, however there's one exception to the rule and that's Love etc. I still surprised me how well it worked in the singles charts - at least in Germany it did. It stayed in the official Top 20 for almost three months. Then again they had a clever video clip accompanying that single release and strongly promoted that track with lots of performances on TV. Then again I remember friends (of friends) my age at the time (22) who bought Yes as they liked Love etc. and then being all together disappointed about the "different" sound of the record. 😂 So, quintessentially they managed to match the youths' taste (at least modestly) one last time in 2009 with that very song as I knew people back then my age or younger who favoured it.

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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#13 Post by TallThinMan »

minimal wrote: Sun 19 Jun 2022, 4:44 pm I agree with Drico, however there's one exception to the rule and that's Love etc. I still surprised me how well it worked in the singles charts - at least in Germany it did. It stayed in the official Top 20 for almost three months. Then again they had a clever video clip accompanying that single release and strongly promoted that track with lots of performances on TV. Then again I remember friends (of friends) my age at the time (22) who bought Yes as they liked Love etc. and then being all together disappointed about the "different" sound of the record. 😂 So, quintessentially they managed to match the youths' taste (at least modestly) one last time in 2009 with that very song as I knew people back then my age or younger who favoured it.

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Ironically Love etc. was largely down to Xenomania.
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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#14 Post by telys »

TallThinMan wrote: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 11:59 pm
telys wrote: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 9:57 pmActually should've seen King's Cross as a single after the big fire and It couldn't happen here a single from the film.
Yes, repurposing King’s Cross to cash in on the tragedy would definitely have been the way to go. Shame on them for not having more commercial nous.
C'mon, it would have been a charity single of course.
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Re: The right choice of singles in order to increase the popularity of PSB (IMHO)

#15 Post by Drico One »

telys wrote: Sat 02 Jul 2022, 8:16 pm
TallThinMan wrote: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 11:59 pm
telys wrote: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 9:57 pmActually should've seen King's Cross as a single after the big fire and It couldn't happen here a single from the film.
Yes, repurposing King’s Cross to cash in on the tragedy would definitely have been the way to go. Shame on them for not having more commercial nous.
C'mon, it would have been a charity single of course.
Yeah, a creepy, crass one.
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