Spotted on Spotify: Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls (1984)

Pet Shop Boys are very much in vogue again at the moment what with a new album and no less than 30 years of pop music making under their collective belts. Radio 2 dedicated a special documentary series to them in fact.

On a warm spring day in 1984 I remember, as a student, going into a record shop in Morecambe Lancs., and fishing out a 12" single from the bargain bin. It was the first release by Pet Shop Boys entitled West End Girls - an extended mix by Bobby Orlando on the A side and another song, appropriately called Pet Shop Boys, on the flip. I'd heard of them via Smash Hits - Neil Tennant was famously a former journalist on the fortnightly mag - so I bought it, took it home and listened to it quite a lot. That record, together with Shannon's Let the Music Play and Depeche Mode's People Are people were on heavy rotation during those warm early summer days indoors.

It wasn't until a few months later that pet Shop boys had a hit with the song West End Girls, although it was in a radically remixed form with beefier drums, trumpet and a female backing vocal, which gave it a bit of extra oomph and indeed got them to number one.

I've jealously kept hold of my original West End Girls 12" over the years especially as I'd noticed that it had never been re-released on CD or in digital formats.

Until now. I just noticed that there are two versions of their somewhat obscure and half-forgotten debut (though still not the one I've got!) on Spotify, where PSB are extremely well represented both with albums and singles. Enjoy the original West End Girls and an early version of  One More Chance here on Spotify - also available on digital download platforms.

Rubbish Culture

And if you thought a simple typo on the front cover during the pre-sales period was bad enough (see pic left), it sounds as if whoever is responibile for these things made a right c*ck-up of the 'deluxe' re-issue of OMD's seminal 1984 album 'Junk Culture'. 

After several complaints about incorrect tracks/mixes/running times etc., Universal are set to re-press the bonus disc (and the bonus disc only9 of the 2 CD set (source: Superdeluxeedition.com). Band member Andy McCluskey personally apologised and partially 'justified' some of the mistakes on the official forum.

Despite mistakes also made on CD1, it does not seem that this disc will be re-printed. This is all a great shame of course in a day and age when CD sales are plummeting and fans are exploited with these 'deluxe' editions which are usually hoped to bring vast sound improvements to much-loved albums, B-sides etc. usually only available in vinyl or inferior CD formats. 

One of the unique features of this issue was the inclusion of B side WrappUp, available on CD for the first time. They even got that wrong and inserted All Wrapped Up from the main album in its place. 

New Zoo

The remastered 30th anniversary edition of Zoolook by Jean Michel Jarre has unexpectedly turned up as a download only on amazon.co.uk and other download sites (available from 18th November on some in Europe). Although its part of the Sony JMJ re-issues which started earlier this year with Oxygène, Equinoxe, Les Chants Magnètiques and three live albums, this is the first to appear billed as an actual remaster.

The digital download release does in fact coincide with the original album release of November 1984. As usual I'm in two minds as to whether I should download the mp3 files straight away or wait for the actual hard copy to come through my letterbox. My original vinyl copy never did get all the play the earlier albums did although perhaps things will change this time around with the new issue which by all accounts has vastly improved sound with regard to the original or even successive digital editions. 

Having said that I have always found the (over) use of the new fangled sampling technology rather tiresome, and despite all his efforts to always come up with something original, Jarre's electronic doodlings were beginning to tire a little. A more recent reworking of Zoolookologie however shows that its a work that stands up to the test of time surprisingly well, nothwithstanding this cringey video - a colourful slice of mid-80s euro-kitsch:

Official news on the further new releases is scarce - at least on the interweb - and this Spanish-language site is the only one I could find which confirms the re-issue of the next five albums in CD format as of 2nd January 2015. Olé!

FAC73 - 7/3/83>7/3/13

Just how I should feel today

Well as most will have heard, today is moreorless officially classified as 'Blue Monday', ie. the most depressing day of the year when all the holiday festivities are over, the weather's crap and you've got not a lot to look forward to. All a load of rubbish of course, mostly as it takes the mickey out of people who suffer from real depression, plus Monday's are always a downner anyway.

But to many of us 'Blue Monday' only really means one thing and that's the seminal New Order track which effectively made it cool to get up and do your thang on the dancefloor from 1983 onwards. And just to take the depressive edge of those who are feeling it on this particular Monday, here's a somewhat ramshackle performance of said song from New Order themselves, which I remember watching on the telly one warm summer Saturday afternoon in 1984.
The whole day's programmes were broadcast live on BBC2 and Radio One on a special music-themed day, although apart from this New Order bit I can't remember much about it. Much like Barney I was probably off my head on one too many cans of lager.

Countdown to Christmas: Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas

Best Christmas pop song ever.

Questions Time

Phew! Let's take a break form all this electro-jiggery pokery (Credo and Interplay on heavy rotation, as they say) and take you back in time for a nice bit of...80s soul?
Heard Isley Bros.' classic Harvest For the World on't wireless this morning and thought 'what a cracking song that is'. Looked it up on't Tube and then came across this pretty amazing version by a hitherto by-us-underheard of beat combo The Questions grooving along on some 80's telly programme with none other than Paul Weller's Ver Style Council (bongos n joanna) left of stage. Amazing!
Even more amazing is that they all look about 14, and isn't that future Style Council choriste Tracie booging along up front too?

Turns out that The Questions were in fact a product of the late 70s/early 80s Scottish scene togther with the likes of Aztec Camera, Orange Juice et al, although opted for Zoom Records (rather than the more trendy Postcard) to give them a contract as far back as 1978. The young Edinburghians won the accolade of Best Young Band from Southern Television and released two singles on Zoom .. and all this before leaving school! Paul Weller picked them to support The Jam in 1980 and also signed them to his label Respond Records a year later, where they then met Tracie Young (backing vocals on Beat Surrender and Speak Like a Child).
Tracie's first hit The House That Jack Built was actually written by Questions members Paul Barry and John Robinson, fact fans, who also wrote three more songettes for her debut album.

Amazingly The Questions didn't get round to releasing their own album until 1984. Sadly, Belief got nowhere and they packed it all in at the 100 Club later that year.
Hard to say whether they deserved better but I'm indebted to Kenneth in the 212 for his blog post on the band's history and the two tracks made available for download. Not really my cup of tea but on this sunny Wednesday, Tuesday Sunshine sounds quite lovely in a 1983 kind of way. they did try very hard, bless 'em.