Frank Ocean’s revolutionary message spreads further, with a little nudge from PopLifer…
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PopLifer’s Adventures in Persia
Posted in "Art", Gay shit, Miscellany, Music, Straight shit
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Picture this#9 – Liverpool 1994, London 2012
Wenlock and Mandeville get it on.
An unlikely first candidate for the first iconic image of London 2012. Bear in mind, this was broadcast the world over…….
Chris
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PSB Winner #3 – Jealousy
3rd of 10 blogs devoted to the 10 best Pet Shop Boys songs of all time, not presented in any particular order. Each has an A side and is followed by a B side, a song so good it nearly made it (and would have for any band not as good as this). For introduction click here.
A Side – Jealousy
There have been some “lively discussions” behind the scenes here at PopLifer over what should make the final cut for our 10 favourite Pet Shop Boys songs of all time, and what should be relegated to B list status. Accusations have been hurled, tastes derided, words said that can never be taken back and cruel decisions made. But on “Jealousy” we were unanimous: it’s one of the best and most piercingly emotional works in the Tennant/Lowe songbook. Lyrically, Tennant perfectly captures the humiliating, petty mundanity of sexual jealousy (“you didn’t phone when you said you would”) while the music moves with eerie grace from understated melancholy to explosive, glorious melodrama. As PopLifer reader Michael Kay emails, it’s “perfect in almost every way. Unforgettably bitter lyrics, sung almost like a love song, and a rousing orchestral finish. Everything you want from a PSB track… my ultimate desert island disc.” Key lyric: “I never knew… til I met… you.”
B Side – Always On My Mind
Posted in Gay shit, Music, Pet Shop Boys
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Picture This #8 – how Danny Boyle first snatched our attention
This was not a fatal blow to Ewan Mcgregor’s career.
Tonight, the stage is Danny Boyle’s. His Olympic opening ceremony will hold the world’s attention with flying sheep, a horde of geese, winged cyclists, an ode to the NHS and a village cricket match. There will be athletes with flags. There will be fireworks.
Boyle first snatched our attention in 1994 with Shallow Grave. A smart piece of cinema, that wasn’t the least bit serious – a rare mix in British cinema whose staple diet had been costume drama and/or social commentary. Shallow Grave was a warning shot. Trainspotting – Boyle’s next film – was an all conquering, culture consuming triumph – a lithe, shivering McGregor providing 90’s Britain with its most iconic image. Boyle will attempt to repeat the trick tonight 18 years on. We’re looking forward to the smack addict dance routine keenly.
Posted in Film, Picture This, Sport, Straight shit
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PSB Winner #2 – West End Girls
This is a series of blogs devoted to the best ten Pet Shop Boys songs of all time, not presented in any particular order. Each has an A side and is followed by a B side, a song so good it nearly made it and would have been a top ten for any band who aren’t as incredible as the Pet Shop Boys. For our hymn to the glorious PSBs click here.
A Side – West End Girls
An almost whispered lyric, made up of wry couplets with no narrative sits on top of an arrangement without a truly memorable hook. A video with a tall man in an overcoat and a shorter man who never smiles walking moodily around a selection of London’s more obvious locations. This was how the Pet Shop Boys introduced themselves to the world and created one of the UK Chart’s most unusual and welcome number 1s. The videos would get better.Even the songs would get better but West End Girls had a set a standard and the Pet Shop Boys had set their idiosyncratic rules of engagement with pop culture: “Sometimes you’re better off dead/There’s a gun in your hand and it’s pointing at your head.”
B Side – Suburbia Continue reading
Posted in "Art", Gay shit, Music, Pet Shop Boys, Uncategorized
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PSB Winner #1 – Can You Forgive Her?
This is a series of blogs devoted to the best ten Pet Shop Boys songs of all time, not presented in any particular order. Each has an A side and is followed by a B side, a song so good it nearly made it and would have been a top ten for any band who aren’t as incredible as the Pet Shop Boys. For our hymn to the glorious PSBs click here.
A Side – Can You Forgive Her?
Startling though it may be to us now, Neil Tennant wasn’t always an out and proud homosexualist (despite dropping a few light hints such as “It’s A Sin” or “Rent”) but it was around the time of “Very” that he finally revealed one of the least well kept secrets in pop to Attitude Magazine. “Can You Forgive Her?” probably left him with little choice: its portrait of those faltering first steps into gay love (“behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed”) and the subsequent vengeance of a girlfriend upon learning of the secret (“she’s gonna make a fool of you in public again”) could hardly have been more clear. The fact that its fantastically smart lyrics were delivered in one of Tennant’s most teasing, serpentine melodies and that the synthesised orchestral riff was a seething, slashing monster makes this one of the Pet Shop Boys absolute and undoubted triumphs. The video was a splendidly silly step into pop surrealism, too, finally erasing the image of Neil Tennant as eternally grey-suited and Chris Lowe as perpetually hiding in an oversized puffa jacket. Key lyric (and one of the best in all pop history): “she’s made you some kind of laughing stock because you dance to disco and you don’t like rock.”
B Side – Heart Continue reading
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