Pet Shop Boys / new album, SUPER

Have been with them from the start but having just listened I am devastated with SUPER. It seems like they sent Stuart Price their demos and he just sent them for mastering then cashed the cheque, please forget the trilogy and get someone else to ‘produce’ the next album. So many of these songs are crying out for a balls out production particularly Undertow and Burn, however there’s no depth or production values to the majority of the tracks, laptop rhythm tracks & casio pop.
Most unforgivable is that some of the songs are just not good enough, something I thought I would never say. Presumably having no A&R anymore means do what you want, it may have worked on Electric but not here.
Hopefully The Pop Kids, Burn & Inner Sanctum are the only SUPER(ficial) tracks they play at the ROH otherwise it may be a 4 long nights at the bar.

P.S; Chicken:Egg // Pazzo!: Tutti Frutti

I heard “SUPER ” today and it is a bad album. The “pop kids” single is good,
but the only other good track on the album is “The Dictator Decides”
( reminds me a little bit of the song-structure of “The Day Before You Came” of ABBA,
without any chorus and an operatic voice at the end. Very strong song!
The rest songs sound cheap and like produced in 4 weeks. More than 4 songs have the very bugging “siren-sounds” – disharmonic. I don’t like this on most of the new club mixes.
“SUPER” has also too much “la-la-la” songs.
Yesterday I heard “Please” again to bring me in the mood for the new album and this album
had NO filler. And “SUPER” is SUPER-bad for me.
I hope the re-re-release of “Please” later this year will makes me happier. I hope.
Tennant and Lowe should change the producer and should do a good album finally.
The last 4 were not so strong as the first albums ( “Please” to “Very / Relentless” ).
“The Pop Kids” promising a good 80’s album – but finally it isn’t.
I dedicated my first 2 books as a photographer to Tennant & Lowe and their
inspiration to me.
But with this quality of “SUPER” I wouldn’t do that again.

So many wildly different opinions!! I liked Electric a lot, not really for gym or clubbing, but car listening (and Thursday was very effective in an episode of HBO’s Looking). I love the entire Pop Kids EP so am very excited to hear Super. Listen before you judge!!

I see reports about a 2LP coloured vinyl version on some sites ( http://www.vinyl-digital.com/en/Electronic/Super-Colored-Vinyl.html?listtype=search&searchparam=Pet%20Shop%20Boys ) but can’t find any official confirmation of this…? Will there be a 2 LP version, or will there just be 1 version on vinyl?

I like this track, very similar in tone to ‘Axis’ as a first single. I like ‘Electric’ too, some cracking tunes there (and some ordinary ones to boot). They can make whatever music they like, we don’t have to buy it…but I’m hoping the album is at least as good as ‘Electric’.
What would disappoint me is another ‘Elysium’, it’s the very definition of a get-out-of-contract album and for me the worst PSB album. I even enjoyed ‘Disco 4’ more than that.

I don’t get the hate for Electric, I really like it, and it’s a perfect workout album at the gym. I only got into PSB when Ultimate PSB came out, wasn’t overly impressed with Elysium, so Electric was a great surprise.

Well I disagree, of course the PSB CAN and should release a hi quality Club-Dance orientated album, look at 2015’s Giorgio Morodor album at age 74 he still knows how to produce a club grooving album…so ‘Yes’ to a clubby Electric and ‘Yes’ ‘Please’ to a Stuart Price Clubby ‘Super’ too. Can’t Wait!

…continuing: my point is that they should me making music closer to what they did on “Release” and not this club/trance stuff… accept your elderstatesman status..

I like PSB, but… Listening to the single… this “lose yourself in the club” trance music shouldn’t be delivered by 59 year olds. It’s the musical equivalent of the 52 year old mother squeezing into her 16 year old daughter’s jeans…

I wonder if “Please” will be a super deluxe?

Just as an aside because it’s shown as “You might also like…” above, did anyone manage to get their hands on one of those hastily withdrawn Prince Original Album Series box sets? I picked up a sealed one on Discogs for 20 Euros a couple of years ago.

Naaah…Stopped listening after Nightlife…the reissue of Please will be good though!

A new Pet Shop Boys Album…SUPER!!!!!!

A new PSB album is always a great event so I’m very much looking forward to this. I can’t believe how quickly time has flown since the last two! On the subject of Nightlife (being others have mentioned it), I’ve never understood at all why so many people can be down about that album. It’s a classic and a masterpiece! I love it so much! I also massively love the Closer To Heaven era. All of those tracks where great and the monumental number of unreleased demos around that time made this a great era for PSB music. Cheers.

I’m very pleased with another super electric popart album, actually!

Disappointed that Stuart Price has produced the new album, “Electric” was the worst Pet Shop Boys album ever, even worse than “Nightlife”!

“Inner Sanctum” sounds a decent track but have a horrible feeling this album is going to be one continious mix, I hope i’m wrong.

A new PSB album with Stuart Price?
Excellent news!

Hopefully, they will partner again with The Vinyl Factory for some insane deluxe vinyl edition – as they did with ‘Yes’, ‘The Most Incredible Thing’, and ‘Electric’!

Loved Electric from start to finish. Great production. Great energy.

Only disappointed that the double disc special editions seem to have stopped. Fundamental, Yes, Elysium… all had amazing second discs in the special edition version.

Funnily enough, I realized yesterday I have four songs called Undertow in my music library (Suzanne Vega, Leonard Cohen, Genesis and R.E.M.).
Soon there will be a fifth one… :-)

PSB have released some amazing albums in their 30 years, although I must admit that their last one is one of my least favorites. I prefer their less dance-oriented albums in general and I thought both Fundamental and Release were fantastic – although their more upbeat efforts, such as Yes are generally amazing too. I have already pre-ordered the new CD & LP, but I do hope it will be somewhat better than Elysium.

Really looking forward to the 2016 release of Please. But I would still prefer if they continued with the excellent Further Listening series. And I am still waiting for Live In Rio and It Couldn’t Happen Here to be released on DVD/BR…

Silly cover but they always deliver, looking forward to this one.

since Nightlife, i’ve been mostly underwhelmed by PSB; and unfortunately i doubt this next project will change that trend.

Stephen Hague produced Please and Actually…actually.

I agree with the comments about the mix but i blame Stuart Price’s production. Personally i think he is rubbish and cannot see why he is producer de rigeur. Looking forward anyway and hope for something of the quality of Thursday times 12 tracks!

The only bright spark on the previous album was “Love is…”and Thursady could worked out as a good track,if it there were not a quite pointless rap [in fact,in the cd single,they made a mix without it and it was way much better].They have taken an excessive dancefloor/electronic way for pleasure people who go to clubs,sacrifigin lyrics,to my point of view.

They’re last [as a “whole”] great work was Release.

I was rather disappointed by the very poor mixing of the previous album… The white duck seemed to have lost his ears and slightly got wrong with the sound … apart of that, the album was half a good suprise (vocal, thurday, bourgeoisie, axis..) and half a bad (Bolshy, fluorescent, inside a dream…)

Hope this one will make it right !

PS : can’t wait for a “Please” reissue! I really have great expectation on this one : Please don’t ofrget any mix ! and if you have place to add demos tracks this will be perfect !

Super

I do remember when 30 years ago they were praised for being both danceable and providers of great lyrics…