Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

Pet Shop Boys - The Pop Kids

Single will be out in March.

Pet Shop Boys have recorded a song with French musician Jean-Michel Jarre for his new album Electronica 2 - The Heart Of Noise.

Finaero

Wayne Studer wrote:Terrific news! - In Graham Norton's interview yesterday with the Pet Shop Boys on his radio show, Neil said that, just as their first six studio albums (Please through Bilingual) were re-released in 2001 in remastered editions, each with an extra disc of bonus tracks, their next five studio albums (Nightlife through Elysium) will receive the same treatment in short order, with the first three tentatively scheduled for release this coming autumn and the remaining two slated for early 2017. (Please note, however, that Neil seemed uncertain about the timing of those releases, so those dates are certainly subject to change. His words were also a bit ambiguous as to whether the first six might also be "re-re-released" around the same time.)

Haven't checked the interview yet, but I have no reason to doubt mr. Studer on this one.

See, JMJ? That's how you make special releases.

Those Further Listening releases were fantastic. I have the ones from Please to Bilingual and all of them are loaded with content. Some even re-recorded for the occasion (like some demos for Dusty and Liza).

Here you can listen to some snippets of the new album
http://www.mediamarkt.hu/webapp/wcs/sto ... Type=audio

Quite shocked by track 1, which is too Country & Western for me. But strangely enough, it does work.

I'm getting the Pop Kids CD single in the mail one of these days! Can't wait to put it in my player!

At this moment part 2 of the 4 part radio documentary is on BBC Radio 2. Some interesting tidbit about a future episode:

Pet Shop Boys, Documentary Episode 4 of 4 (BBC Radio 2, Thursday March 31, 10PM GMT)

The programme also features a world exclusive preview of a new PSB-collaboration with French musician Jean Michel Jarre: Brick England.

With guests: music producers Stuart Price and Jean Michel Jarre, musician Johnny Marr, writer Jonathan Harvey, set designer Es Devlin, music programmer Pete Gleadall and PSB biographer Chris Heath.
Written and produced by Malcolm Prince.

Super will be sold in the PSB pop-up-store in London:

Last week we announced a special pop-up store in London to mark the release of the Super album on April 1st. We can now reveal that the Super Store will be located in Boxpark Shoreditch, Unit 26, Braithwaite Street, E1 6GY.

The Super Store will sell a range of new Pet Shop Boys merchandise, including tee-shirts in five different designs, iPhone cases, a signed screen print (edition of 100), badges, and signed Super CDs and vinyl (while stocks last). There will also be listening stations with B&O Play headphones so visitors can listen to the album.

The shop will open from Friday April 1st to April 3rd, trading 11am to 7pm (Friday and Saturday) and 12pm to 6pm on Sunday.

So far, I'm loving the album. At the moment, Super rests at #6 in my personal Pet Shop Boys album top 13. Top tracks include Burn, Undertow, Happiness and the Dictator Decides.

Finaero

I decided that I'm not gonna listen to any more already available tracks for the upcoming PSB and JMJ albums until the albums themselves are released... but I'll make an exception tomorrow for the PSB+JMJ collaboration track.

(and the PSB album will be released on Friday anyway... hopefully my preorder vinyl will get here then, too!)

According to my local recordstore they have the album today, so I'm going to visit them later today.

Finaero

Wow, apparently my vinyl pre-order was dispatched... today on the date of release. *sigh*

Burn is a really great track.

Happiness is actually pretty clever, and The Dictator Decides quite moody.

Twenty-something is like some kind of a hybrid between Magnetic Fields 2 and a late-1990s dance track. Sorta fitting, I guess.

I really liked Inner Sanctum when it was released early on, but I sort of stopped listening to the original when the heavy similarities to "Age of Love - Age of Love" were discovered. After which I've preferred this mash-up to either of those original tracks.

Aside from those... hm. Maybe they'll grow on me. Maybe they won't.

Kind of a lackluster release. :\

Finaero wrote:Wow, apparently my vinyl pre-order was dispatched... today on the date of release. *sigh*

Burn is a really great track.

Happiness is actually pretty clever, and The Dictator Decides quite moody.

Twenty-something is like some kind of a hybrid between Magnetic Fields 2 and a late-1990s dance track. Sorta fitting, I guess.

I really liked Inner Sanctum when it was released early on, but I sort of stopped listening to the original when the heavy similarities to "Age of Love - Age of Love" were discovered. After which I've preferred this mash-up to either of those original tracks.

Aside from those... hm. Maybe they'll grow on me. Maybe they won't.

Kind of a lackluster release. :\

Try Undertow - it's an instant classic like Burn is.
The album is a grower and has its lowpoints (Groovy, Say it to me), but it has ended up at my 6th favorite PSB album (after Actually, Introspective, Fundamental, Electric and Please).

Finaero

Well, after a few hours of additional listens I currently hold these tracks as the best ones on the album:
Happiness, Twenty-something, Inner Sanctum, Undertow and Burn

(Included Inner Sanctum there even though I prefer the mash-up since Inner Sanctum is still a stronger track than Age of Love, and I prefer it to AoL separately)

So that's 5/12.

It's definitely above Nightlife, Release and Elysium, probably on the same level as Bilingual and Fundamental. At least for now.

Oh, and I initially ignored Undertow due to the detuned synth bass, but now I've gotten used to it. Burn remains the best track.

(and the detuned bass makes an appearance there as well)

Velodynamic

I'm afraid to say that I'm missing something from the old (80's-90's) PS Boys and wants it back.
I could only hear about half of the media markt snippets though.
It sounds "experimental" and software geekish but I can't no longer find the incredible "hit" factor that they once use to have.
I always listened to their "best-of" vinyl and on my dad's old and tired harman kardon hifi system from the 70's wich gave it the right *oompff* to the older synth sound.

The track with JMJ though could be a good re-boot I think.

Pet shop boys