{{{In an article entitled 'Burn It' in the UK's New Musical Express, Pet Shop Boy's Neil Tennant discusses tracks he would pick to listen to over the festive season. 1st on the list is Prince's If I Was Your Girlfriend. Tennant comments:

'I think it's very brave for such a heterosexual man as Prince to imagine he's a woman. Musically it's very murky and mysterious. Where Prince went wrong was when he stopped usind drum machines. Before that, he was amazing. I like the way he's not scared to approach a completely unusual subject, like this one or the brilliant imagery of 'When Doves Cry'. I like his obsession with psychadelia, but he's got a real pop sensibility at the same time'. }}}

Also interestingly enough, the New Musical Express cites http://www.prince.org as a source of further information as opposed to http://www.npgmusicclub.com!

Just as a matter of interest to those who want to know what else Neil Tennant picked, the songs are as follows..

Golden Boy with Miss Kittin
'Rippin Kittin'

Grace Jones
'Slave To The Rhythm'

Joni Mitchell
'Coyote'

Bobby "O"
'Im So Hot 4 U'

Colin Blustone
'Misty Roses'

Harold Budd/Brian Eno
'Late October'

Propoganda
'A Dream Within A Dream'

Rufus Wainwright
'Poses'

Kraftwerk
'Computer Love'

"ah the pet shop boys?its a sin."

pet shop boys

I ADORE the Pet Shop Boys and I love Neil's selection of tracks. I LOOOVE Miss Kittin's song "Rippin Kittin" and I can't get enough of Grace Jones.

I just wish someone would buy me the new Pet Shop Boys "PopArt" compliation...

ScottNPG said:

co sign

PanthaGirl said:

Why shout?

I like the comment about the drummachine... although I have to disagree.

TENNANT said:

- Well, the problem is not Prince stopping using drum machines, but it started when he wasn´t them in a creative way anymore. He kept on using them after IIWYG but sometimes it was very bland. In the 80s, he used them very well. ´When doves cry´ has such a great beat, and it would be a lot worse if it was played with live drums.
But his use of drum machine in the 90s (specially in the dark years - 97 to 2000) was really awful. Even Britney had a better electronic drum sound.

cloud9mission said:

Aren't you pretending to be a songwriter? You might pick up a few tips from the PSB. Unless you've written something as brilliant as "Rent".

GustavoRibas said:

I still wouldn't wanna miss these so called 'dark years' dork...

I'm not the biggest fan of the Pet Shop Boys, but they do have talent (although referring to "Rent", one of their weaker tracks, as "brilliant" is misguided at best). They are definitely innovators in their genre, even if its not your cuppa tea. Neil is a very intelligent guy, and doesn't give props easily. His recognition of this song is impressive to me, because I've always thought it one of Prince's best lyrical works. In many ways, IIWYGF sums up much of what Prince is all about.

halte said:

- I have the albums, but I seriously thought about stopping being a Prince fan then. The quality of the albums were much inferior to all the stuff he released in the past (including Diamonds and Pearls and Batman). Most of the songs sounded like plastic.
I am glad these years are gone.

I have to totally agree with gustavo's previous comment, 97-2000 weren't the greatest of years. I wouldn't give up those albums, but of everything Prince related, they only get played in my house once in a blue moon, whereas everything else is on constant rotation!

R.e the Pet Shop Boys - aside from Prince, they are my favorite all-time musicians. They have endured through times where the media and record companies abandoned them, and stayed true to their creative vibe.

The Pet Shop Boys (like Prince) have always produced high quality b-sides, which is a quality that I think is increasingly rare.

The record comapanies here in Australia, don't even do local releases of their albums anymore, everything (aside from greatest hits compilations) have to be bought on import. There is a large fan base here in Australia too...

The song "Rent" is great, but for my listening reccommendations "My October Symphony", "This must be the place I've waited years to leave" and all of the albums Behaviour, Very and Bilingual.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Prince didn't exactly make his best music between '99 and '00, some of Rave is listenable though. But New Power Soul..don't get me started
Despite that, Prince is great with or without a drum machine

have to agree with neil tennant.

some of prince's most ingenius moments (something in the water, when doves cry, if i was your girlfriend, erotic city) stem from prince's ability to bring percussive sounds into the foreground and allow them take a larger role in the communication of his ideas.

for example, the slick, calculated and thrusting beats on "hot thing" tell us more about the character in the song than any of the actual lyrics do.

the relentless, harsh sounds in "something in the water" drive the character mad just as the "special women who make him cry" do.

those sounds added yet another dimension to his already complex recordings.
his output undoubtedly lost a certain character when prince became more reliant on the live drum sounds (NPG years).
the heavy live drums sounded so forced and imposing on prince's more sensitive and precise rhythms.

prince, please lock yourself(just you) in a room with a drum machine, a synthesizer and a guitar and just experiment.
the less deliberate sounding the better.

as for the pet shop boys: consistently brilliant.

before you close that door...


"its happened before"...

pet shop boys have been mastering some classic beats on the downlow...

dont discredit them based on "west end girls"...(and thats a kicker anyways..IMHO)

scrambledeggsaresoboring said:

- I liked your analysis of Prince´s drums on his 80s songs. But I don´t think that the live drums made his music worse. Since Grafiti Bridge and Batman, his drum machine wasn´t getting so creative as in the mid-80s. Batman had already very slick drums. And Prince returned to drum machines in the 97-2000 era, and the results were very predictable and boring. Prince probably stopped challenging himself like he used to. I wish he could experiment more. He did some brilliant electronic drums in the past.

don't forget Neil Tennant was a journalist before 1986, for NME or Melody Maker, I don't remember. I do like some of their stuff the album Behaviour is really great, those after 1990 started being less interesting