Interpretation and analysis of songs written or performed by Pet Shop Boys
Comments
I admire the guy's dedication in doing the analysis for each and every song in the band's discography. Despite music's enduring popularity, music "scholarship" seems pretty rare outside of the odd coffee-table book.
I remember in the web 1.0 days, I used to browse similar sites where fans would submit interpretations of lyrics from artists like Tool or System of a Down. I miss those sites. Lyrics are easier than ever to find online now, but not so much if you want to figure out what the song actually means.
I've had good success with https://songmeanings.com/
They Might Be Giants has a fan wiki with all of that stuff, aptly named "This Might Be a Wiki", which makes sense given the kind of fans the band has.
Another super nerd, super original group, but in this case with a much minor fanbase. Basically a minoritary cult group. The TMBG wiki will deserve a look. Thanks
Most lyric sites were ultimately supplanted by Genius, which does allow users to annotate lyrics and explain what is meant. Originally Genius was focused on hip-hop and its often arcane lyrics, but it has long since expanded to every popular-music genre. And before Genius there was songmeanings.com, which contains a great deal of commentary on rock and pop which has still not found its way to Genius.
With regard to music scholarship dealing with popular music genres, there are popular book series like 33-1/3, scholarly monograph series like Ashgate’s Popular and Folk Music Series and Bloomsbury’s Ex:Centrics, and articles in the various musicological journals. Obviously the more erudite the artist, the more likely he/she will draw attention from scholars (which is why David Bowie and Kate Bush, for example, have been researched more than most pop musicians). But still, there may be more out there on your own favourite artists than you think.
That's a pity. It's easy for a smart firm to take over a space like this, but in doing so it kills all the lesser fan-driven versions. The latter are labors of love and vary widely in quality, but I'm not sure that a homogenized platform-product is superior.
Somebody found the source disks that PSB used in their Fairlight CMI synthesizer:
... and here's the Fairlight in action:
Which one is it? I see a Yamaha DX1, an EMU emulator II and Technics PX.
There are some screens that look like Fairlight control screens. Is the Fairlight used for the background drums and base etc?
Surely there have been (lots) more than 800 visits to this site since March 2001! Love the counter though!
Really the only review that matters for most of us casuals: http://www.geowayne.com/newDesign/please/westendgirls.htm
Surely you meant http://www.geowayne.com/newDesign/very/gowest.htm ?
This should not be a debate.
Take a note from the pet shop boys: they never argue.
They also never calculate the currency they spend.
I feel honor-bound to correct your typo where you meant to post http://www.geowayne.com/newDesign/actually/sin.htm
Not in the US (as is even mentioned on that page).
This song is transcendent in so many ways.
Actually, what matters is "Rent". Pun intended and all... :)
Wow, I remember reading this site over twenty years ago. It’s neat that both PSB and this fan site are still going strong.
There was a time around 1994-96 when almost every website was like this: dense, tightly focused, produced by someone with an amateur passion for the topic.
Today it seems that content in that mold is much more likely to be walled inside social media sites, shared with relatively small like-minded groups.
> It’s neat that both PSB and this fan site are still going strong.
As legit bearers of the "great white-nerd hope" crown, Pet shop boys never where small in Europe, but they were clearly too much for US. not only gay, but (their worse sin) too much focused in politics and history (socialist history) to be accepted.
In the game of writing catchy songs that are well crafted and don't feel stupid, still can beat most of the current pop stars with both hands tied back. They still show the cool factor here and there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooIWFjD-Y84
Or even better: the magnificient Love Comes Quickly
I’ve seen them live both in the US and several times in Europe. In Europe they are completely mainstream playing large venues in front of evenly mixed gender audiences, whereas when I saw them in the US the venue was much smaller and the audience seemed to consist mostly of men.
Is sad that they are tagged as a "gay group" now, when the first three albums were simply two nerds doing insanely catchy, state-of-the-art, electronic pop that everybody loved. This ruins the experience a little probably.
I talked to a straight house DJ two decades ago who said that he felt compelled to throw in the occasional PSB remix, among a few other artists, just to maintain the gay following without which no DJ’s career would flourish in clubland. At a time when house music still had this “underground”, “play the music you love” aura, it definitely showed how mercenary set programming could be.
Today, the info would be in wikia packed with ads/autplaying videos, or maybe a discord that is impossible to find.
I searched "Pet shop boys go west" in google, and this page was below the fold, despite me having just visited it. Ahead of it was a bunch of videos (ok), lyrics pages (I only need one), a wikia page, a few ways to buy the album, two (!) different links to quora, and a bunch of ways to stream the song.
I dunno if this site has poor SEO or these other sites are gamifying it. The quora links really baffled me, and I'm surprised at just how many different streaming/lyrics sites popped up before I got to a different type of useful info.
Those sites are still being made. You just do not find them with google. Maybe it is time to bring back curated lists and web rings.
Along the same vein: https://blog.kagi.com/small-web