I've got the brain, you've got the brawn

Continuing my trip back through the 1986 album charts

01/06/86 : Please - Pet Shop Boys


I've always had a soft spot for them PSBs, but I don't think I've ever listened to their debut album - well, that's about to change, isn't it?

It opens with a decent enough track but then goes on quite the run - "West End Girls", "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)", "Love Comes Quickly" and "Suburbia" are all great tracks and a pleasure to revisit. After that, I have to admit I found a bit of a let-down - there was nothing actively wrong with any of them, but they all kinda blurred together. But when it's good, this album is pretty damn good.

We're all the way down at #15 this week having skipped over a best-of from The Cure (which I nearly selected because it's a fine collection), a remix album from Go West, a soundtrack album from AC/DC and a best-of from Earth, Wind & Fire! This was its tenth week of an impressive 37 week run with it having peaked at #3 in its first two weeks - but this one really had legs, managing two further runs of 14 and 14 weeks in '87, two further runs of 11 and 6 weeks in '88 and a single week in '18 (obviously!). The top five this week were Peter Gabriel, Simply Red, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music and Billy Ocean with the highest new entry being Chris de Burgh (#8).

Wikipedia tells us this is their debut album and was so called so that people had to go into the shop and say "Can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, Please?" - it's been re-released THREE times over the years which feels a bit excessive. The critics were nice about it (particularly Smash Hits, for some reason) and I wasn't at all surprised to see it did well across Europe, but I didn't expect it to have got to #7 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" New Order, OMD, The Thompson Twins and Tears For Fears - I don't think there are too many surprises in that list (although New Order would claim they're way too cool for that company). Pet Shop Boys occupy a strange cool yet uncool kind of space - this is a decent enough album, but for me it struggles to maintain the strong start. But it really is a very strong start.

25/05/86 - A fine album
08/06/86 - Nice enough

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