Please - Pet Shop Boys

Listening to the Pet Shop Boys 1985 debut album in a modern context is an interesting experience. Its classic eighties styling are thoroughly retro nowadays, and yet still it stands apart from its contemporaries - always one step ahead of Soft Cell, New Order, Eurythmics et. al. For the strong qualities it exhibits it remains one of those 'must-have' albums for any music aficionado, even if in other respects it has been greatly surpassed by the rest of the pet Shop Boys work. The opening track "Two Divided By Zero" is characterised by the monotone computer voice which provides a hollow refrain to the main lyric. On Jacques Lu Cont's recently released ...  Read the complete review

A friend once told me, with spurious precision, that all bands produce their greatest work between the ages of 24 and 29. I had always seen the Pet Shops Boys as an exception to that rule, but now concede he has a point. It was during those years that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe met by chance in an electronics shop on the King's Road and started work on some of the tracks that would secure their fame. Eventually Tennant gave up the day job of writing for Smash Hits and, at the grand old age of 31, stepped out of the review pages and into the limelight. "Please" is the debut album by the Pet Shop Boys and time has not wearied it. The Pet Shop Boys ...  Read the complete review

The first album by the Pet Shop Boys, and arguably the best. 11 tracks of classic eighties music, featuring the emerging vocal talents of lead singer Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe on keyboards. Stephen Hague produced this album, which features excellent eighties fashion on the sleeve cover. The top ten hits "West End Girls", "Opportunities", "Loe Comes Quickly" and "Suburbia" feature at the beginning of the album, which is a shame as towards the middle, the tracks get weaker, particularly "Tonight Is Forever" and "Violence". However, order is soon restored and the listener is left with the optimistic and ...  Read the complete review