Pet Shop Boys Remastered
July 4, 2020 12:50 PM   Subscribe

Pet Shop Boys recently released remastered HD versions of 5 of their classic videos: Domino Dancing, West End Girls, What Have I Done To Deserve This?, It's A Sin, Go West. YouTube Playlist
posted by hippybear (20 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Recent in the geological sense I guess. These videos are from 2009.

Anyway, Pet Shop Boys are cool.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:24 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Oof, the artifacting on the "Go West" video.

Upscaling algorithms can do some things well, but when they fall down, they fall down _hard_. I'd much rather music videos done on video be presented in native resolution, but music videos done on film rescanned and presented at HD resolution.
posted by SansPoint at 1:55 PM on July 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I linked to this in the thread about the Prince & The Revolution concert video, but it's as relevant here: Why Some "Remastered" Music Videos Look Awful
posted by SansPoint at 1:58 PM on July 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Babeeeeee Iiiiii didn't love Youuuuuu....quite as often as I shouulud... ....
posted by Afghan Stan at 1:58 PM on July 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Recent in the geological sense I guess. These videos are from 2009.

Huh. PSB are promoting these on twitter as being new. Well, still, some of the transfers are lovely.
posted by hippybear at 2:10 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Also the lyric is "Maybeeee Iiiii didn't love Youuuuuuu...."
posted by hippybear at 2:11 PM on July 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


So, I became a PSB fan as a Midwestern teenager brought up in a church that was leftist in some significant ways, but still pretty conservative on sexuality, and my parents were more so. I remember hearing these random rumors about their sexuality early on and sort of dismissing them without really understanding them. As a slightly older and wiser praemunire, I saw the video for "Domino Dancing" and was like, um, yeah, something NOT ENTIRELY STRAIGHT is going on here! (I was still confused, though. Only slightly older and wiser.)
posted by praemunire at 2:35 PM on July 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Whuddafy
Whuddafy
Whuddafy
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:45 PM on July 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


Probably been linked here a bajillion times before, but if you like these, you'll also like Disco.
posted by carter at 2:57 PM on July 4, 2020


I'm trying to figure out how it is that, although I've bought every PSB album ever, and have seen all the other videos multiple times, I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing the video for Domino Dancing. It definitely seems like a video that I would have / should have remembered.
posted by WhenInGnome at 3:16 PM on July 4, 2020


I found the PSB in college (in the 2000s, I didn't know anything about music, sue me) and was absolutely shocked that there was a very popular band singing openly about the gay experience in the 1980s. Then I found out they weren't actually out in the '80s and somehow the obvious telegraphing in their music was not obvious at the time. That the general public didn't pick up on the themes really drove home to me how much more hidden queer life was back then.
posted by Anonymous at 3:48 PM on July 4, 2020


Surprised they didn't do the Always On My Mind cover; since it's just clips from their movie It Couldn't Happen Here presumably the film masters would be relatively easy to find and there wouldn't be a need for algorithmic upscaling. (Which, as SansPoint points out, is often awful.)

I think this was the first music video I ever saw on 120 Minutes, shortly after my trailer park got cable in the late 80s. The video's inscrutable air of surrealist mystery and vague menace blew my impressionable 13yo mind and basically set me down an aesthetic road I'm still on.
posted by Ian A.T. at 4:11 PM on July 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Of note: "It's A Sin" was directed by filmmaker Derek Jarman.
posted by Ian A.T. at 4:19 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Huh. PSB are promoting these on twitter as being new. Well, still, some of the transfers are lovely.

They're new - YouTube allows creators at a certain level to sub out videos wholesale while retaining the original upload dates and view counts, so it can be confusing.
posted by Kyol at 7:25 PM on July 4, 2020


Boy, looks like a lot of opportunities!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:28 PM on July 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


"It's A Sin" was directed by filmmaker Derek Jarman.

He did the set design for the tour, too.
posted by praemunire at 8:48 PM on July 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Ouch, Jarman was a victim of the AIDS pandemic. I didn't realize that. RIP, and thanks for your art.
posted by hippybear at 8:55 PM on July 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


These take me back, they do.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:45 AM on July 5, 2020


In 2019, the biggest argument bar none at my former workplace was over whether "West End Girls" was a rap song.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:26 AM on July 5, 2020


Ouch, Jarman was a victim of the AIDS pandemic. I didn't realize that. RIP, and thanks for your art.

Read his Modern Nature, in which he talks about living life in the shadow of his diagnosis (he didn't start to fall seriously ill until near the end of the book) while, among other things, doing the It's a Sin set design. (It's mostly about gardening, though.)
posted by praemunire at 11:32 AM on July 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


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