"And I remember us thinking... Like we'll EVER make SEVEN albums!"

September 17, 2019 10:07 PM

Pet Shop Boys. Documentary. The Parlophone Years. [BBC2 link] Neil and Chris talk about their ELEVEN albums released on Parlophone Records between 1986 and 2012 in a documentary radio show, presented by Graham Norton. Covers 52 PSB songs covering every album. Available for about a month.

Pet Shop Boys also just this week did a show at Hyde Park [BBC2 link, available for about a month, video link works if you're in the UK, available for about a month] and they have a new single [on their own label since 2013, x2 (times two)] featuring Years & Years, Dreamland. [Presumably available in perpetuity.]

posted by hippybear (13 comments total)

(This doesn't get into their soundtrack for Battleship Potemkin or their ballet The Most Incredible Thing or any of the other interesting little art side projects they've done.)
posted by hippybear at 10:12 PM on September 17, 2019

(Also, if you're a gay man of A Certain Age this entire thing is some really weird march back into youth and forward toward now. Just sayin'.)
posted by hippybear at 10:13 PM on September 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

One last thing to share before before I bow out... When they talk about Jealousy, I just want to share what they did on their 2009 Pandemonium tour with Jealousy. I saw this live (at a different performance of the tour) and it astonished me with its intensity.
posted by hippybear at 10:31 PM on September 17, 2019 [4 favorites]

I fell off the Pet Shop Boys train decades ago, but those Parlophone albums were part of the soundtrack of my youth. Going to have a listen to this when I get a chance.
posted by pharm at 1:39 AM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

(OK, I'm putting this in parenthesis because it's only tangentially related, but for future reference: BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4 are television stations. BBC3 used to be a broadcast television station for the youngs but it's now online only, much like the target audience itself. BBC Radio 1 through Radio 6 are radio stations (duh!): Radio 1 is for Young People's Pop; Radio 2 is for Old People's Pop; Radio 3 is classical, jazz, difficult music and abstruse talk; Radio 4 is general speech programmes - news, documentaries, quiz shows, comedy shows and the popular breakfast show News and Views For Brexity Gammons with John Simpson. The television stations are not available outside the UK, but the radio stations are (as far as I can tell). So these programmes were originally made for BBC Radio 2, which would make sense (I was confused). There could be equivalent TV programmes on BBC2 (the television station), but they would most likely be on BBC4 on a Friday evening.

I return you to the actual subject of the post)
posted by Grangousier at 2:50 AM on September 18, 2019 [9 favorites]

Love the hippybear music posts - keep ‘em up! :)
posted by Salamander at 4:37 AM on September 18, 2019

"...If I was left to my own devices, I probably would"

That song was sort of an anthem of mine during a very bad time of my life. Listening to the PSBs while sitting in the chemo chair made it just a tad more tolerable.
posted by james33 at 4:46 AM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

News and Views For Brexity Gammons with John Simpson.

I think you mean John Humphreys. John Simpson's the BBC's World Affairs editor, not the soon-to-retire Today presenter.

(Just to continue this fascinating lesson for our American friends, the BBC's television stations brand themselves by spelling out the numbers as words (BBC One, BBC Two etc), except for the one which begins as Roman numerals then switches abruptly to an exclamation mark (BBC II!). The radio stations, on the other hand, use numbers: Radio 1, Radio 2 etc. When a particular radio station spawns its own baby sibling, the new station appends the word "extra", indicated in the branding by either an x (as as "Radio 1x") or an e ("Radio 4e"). Why people find this confusing I cannot imagine.)
posted by Paul Slade at 10:12 AM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

Oh you've done it now, hippybear!

I scored a mathematically-unbeatable 17/30 on the BBC's PSB quiz. Come at me bro(s)!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 6:26 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Also, the obligatory amazing Flight Of The Conchords spoof.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 6:31 PM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

Come at me bro(s)!

Um... I'm a bit embarrassed by my score, actually. (screenshot in my dropbox)
posted by hippybear at 7:17 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Just to continue this fascinating lesson for our American friends

Look, all I know is this was on a bbc.co.uk website and there was a 2 in the corner. of the screen. As far as the video version of the Hyde Park show, I don't know when or where it might have been on any BBC channel, I only know it exists. I listened to the show live and it was delightful, and I was sad that I couldn't watch the footage when I learned it was there.
posted by hippybear at 8:05 PM on September 18, 2019

Anyway, just go listen to the documentary. It's great, I loved it, I even learned a bit.

And I don't really like the new lead off single but I liked their live performance of it so maybe it'll grow on me.

The new album, it's been speculated or maybe even reported on, will be the third of a trilogy they are doing with Stuart Price, the first of which was Electric in 2013 (an astounding album, in my opinion), followed by 2016's Super (a different flavor in the same quadrant, I think)... Agenda was an EP from earlier this year that was super political. This next album they're working on... I don't even know if Dreamland is from that or another EP or what.

Thank you, UK citizenry, for bringing me 2 hours of utterly delightful listening!
posted by hippybear at 9:17 PM on September 19, 2019