Disco 3 is 20 years old

[Tom Angel]

An article on how Disco 3 (possibly) saved Pet Shop Boys after Release.


https://tomed.substack.com/p/pet-shop-b ... co-3-is-20

I cannot believe it's 20 years.

[leesmapman]

He's pretty harsh on Release, but I was thinking the same when I first heard the album. The 2nd track on Disco 3 starts with the lines "here we are, back again, back on everything. Went too far, now we're fine". I thought it was a reference to the Release release.

(Nowadays I love to play Release on a lazy day. )

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-J410F met Tapatalk

[DopeFiend]

Yeah I saw this article and was thinking to post it.
By the way I love Release, it's in my top 5 PSB albums.
Sort of interesting to see this viewpoint of how Disco 3 fits in with the timeline of styles for PSB.

[Spittingcat]

I love Release as well… but Disco3 was a very welcome to clear the air so soon afterwards.
The did the same with Electric after Elysium.
I was hoping for a quick palate cleanser after Hotspot to continue this trend… perhaps they had planned one before the pandemic hit.

[Luke Colorado]

Disco 2 was the only one of the series I liked. Very creative. Great energy.

[jasonjohn]

Please shut this thread down. Disco3 isn't 20 years old. Only just heard it the other day, surely.

[domino]

Please shut this thread down. Disco3 isn't 20 years old. Only just heard it the other day, surely.

It hurts too much to face the truth ...

[daveid]

Will be 20 on 3rd February

Terrifying...

[Dog]

I bought it on release day in the airport the morning I flew out on honeymoon. Thankfully Our Price were on point with their new releases.

I wonder if we’ll ever see another Disco.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

I've said it before, but for me Disco 3 was a very significant release because it arrested the period of decline and inconsistency that had effectively commenced the moment after Very was put on the record store shelves, 10 years prior. Taking advantage of the back-to-basics sound ushered in by the brief electroclash movement, the Boys were able to reconnect with their roots (it's not insignificant that there's a Bobby O composition on there) and find a new way forward. Especially when followed up by the two PopArt singles, Miracles and Flamboyant, it was clear that the boys had rediscovered something that had been lost along the way.

Now 20 years after Disco 3, we can see how much of a wonderful canon of music has been since created, simply by taking that opportunity to strip things back to basics and start again. I suspect that's what they thought they were doing with Release, but that was taking things back too far, to Neil's 70's guitar-music roots, when ironically they really needed to revisit 1983... 20 years prior to Disco 3.

In that sense, Disco 3 was less of a rehash of Release, than it was the birth of Pet Shop Boys mark 2... the second half of the Pet Shop Boys career.

Retro.

[daveid]

I bought it on release day, started listening to it on the train home from work, accidentally left the digipak on the train, bought another copy and then sent back the disc because of the well-known glitch on track one. Luckily I still had one copy sans digipak that I could listen to whilst waiting for it to arrive.

[Dog]

Greetings,

I've said it before, but for me Disco 3 was a very significant release because it arrested the period of decline and inconsistency that had effectively commenced the moment after Very was put on the record store shelves, 10 years prior. Taking advantage of the back-to-basics sound ushered in by the brief electroclash movement, the Boys were able to reconnect with their roots (it's not insignificant that there's a Bobby O composition on there) and find a new way forward. Especially when followed up by the two PopArt singles, Miracles and Flamboyant, it was clear that the boys had rediscovered something that had been lost along the way.

Now 20 years after Disco 3, we can see how much of a wonderful canon of music has been since created, simply by taking that opportunity to strip things back to basics and start again. I suspect that's what they thought they were doing with Release, but that was taking things back too far, to Neil's 70's guitar-music roots, when ironically they really needed to revisit 1983... 20 years prior to Disco 3.

In that sense, Disco 3 was less of a rehash of Release, than it was the birth of Pet Shop Boys mark 2... the second half of the Pet Shop Boys career.

Retro.

I know what you are saying, but I think Release should be credited as the moment they reset, ready to rebuild.

[tottenhammattspurs]

I always view Disco 3 as the cancelled third and forth singles from release and their subsequent b-sides and pre-commissioned remixes.

If Home and Dry and I Get Along were bigger sellers we’d have had the third and fourth singles and disco 3 would never had existed.

[daveid]

I always view Disco 3 as the cancelled third and forth singles from release and their subsequent b-sides and pre-commissioned remixes.

If Home and Dry and I Get Along were bigger sellers we’d have had the third and fourth singles and disco 3 would never had existed.

I remember at the time, Neil was asked in an interview how many singles would be released from the album and he said three or four. London was sort-of the third single and of course the fourth didn't appear but it may well have been "Here". So they had a few tracks kicking around for Disco 3, including the cancelled Greatest Hits tracks that would have been released in 2000.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Dog,

I know what you are saying, but I think Release should be credited as the moment they reset, ready to rebuild.

I hear you, but given that the "rebuild" checked in immediately afterwards via Miracles, Flamboyant, their remixes of Yoko Ono's Walking On Thin Ice (note that there were both PSB electro and dance mixes), and the Barfly/XFM versions of some of their classics, I'm not sure that Release played any significant part in that rebuilding. I'll grant you that Release was certainly the commencement of the intent to rebuild, but in practice, was just a continuation of the nadir.

During the Nightlife era, they still had the "dance" element to their output, but had completely lost the "electro" element. Disco 3 (provisionally titled London/Berlin) helped them to rediscover electro. It was the rediscovery of that element, experimenting with it, and not losing it this time, which was crucial to the success and longevity of their next chapter.

Retro.