Alternative Best Of / Pet Shop Boys
In September 1987, three months after Thatch the stinky snatch completed her hat trick of election victories, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe made an album that remembered all we had lost since the start of the decade and reconnected the fast disappearing alliance between escapism and political awareness. Suddenly the Pet Shop Boys were everything the post punk new pop dream had ever wanted to be, true subversion underlying a shameless desire for hits, dry intellect merging with a return to pop and all its gay disco glory.
From thereon their records always danced around God’s handbag before doing naughty things to strangers on their way back from the toilets. New Order with meaning, The Smiths dancing til’ dawn, all shot through with sorry tales of doomed streetlife documented as eloquently as Shane MacGowan. Is it any wonder I loved them.
Sure, a decade later they may have got a little bit repetitive, and maybe I have had to cheat a little here to squeeze in some of the hits because the Pet Shop Boys without any of the hits, no matter what the mix, are just not the same. So ‘Suburbia’, ‘Paninaro’ and ‘It’s Alright’ rub shoulders with all those not so well known B sides and album tracks although these are all so well chronicled nothing here should be hard to find. Yet find them you should because Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe remain our most dignified and undemonstrative of pop visionaries.
1. Suburbia / Video Only Mix September 1986
2. Paninaro / Single B Side Original Version September 1986
3. Shopping / Actually September 1987
4. King's Cross / Actually September 1987
5. I Get Excited (You Get Excited Too) / Single B Side March 1988
6. I Want A Dog / Introspective October 1988
7. I'm Not Scared / Introspective October 1988
8. It’s Alright / 10” Version released June 1989
9. My Funny Uncle / Single B Side June 1989
10. To Face The Truth / Behaviour October 1990
11. My October Symphony / Behaviour October 1990
12. Miserablism / Single B Side December 1991
13. How I Learned To Hate Rock ’n' Roll / Single B Side August 1996
14. The Survivors / Bilingual September 1996
15. In Denial / Release April 2002
16. London / Release April 2002
17. More Than A Dream / Yes March 2009
