New Music: Relentless Love

           

Sophie Ellis-Bextor has shared her first new music of 2025 with joyous new song ‘Relentless Love’ out now, the track is a buoyant disco-infused funk-pop track that builds through catchy grooves and luminous synths to an energetic and euphoric chorus. 

News: Pet Shop Boys Will Reissue "Discography" In Blue Coloured Vinyl

The Pet Shop Boys will reissue Discography: The Complete Singles Collection, their 1991 singles or best of, on 2LP blue coloured vinyl, this May.

Originally released in 1991, this collection was the band's first greatest hits and was released between 1990's Behaviour and before 1993's Very. It features all the band's UK singles up to that point in proper seven-inch form except for  "How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?" because that single was a double A-side with "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)" the U2 mash-up cover that was included.

Discography also introduced to two new songs back then "DJ Culture" and "Was It Worth It?" Both were released as singles before and after Discography, respectively.

This collection was issued as a 2LP set on black vinyl at the time,  CD and cassette, but doesn’t appear to have been reissued on the LP format at all in the last 34 years. This new edition pressed on blue vinyl and features the 2023 remasters.

Discography: The Complete Singles Collection will be reissued on 30 May 2025, via Parlophone.

Discography The Complete Singles Collection Track List:  

 

LP 1

Side A

    1. West End Girls

    2. Love Comes Quickly

    3. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)

    4. Suburbia

Side B 

    1. It’s A Sin

    2. What Have I Done To Deserve This?

    3. Rent

    4. Always On My Mind

    5. Heart

LP 2

 

Side C

 

    1. Domino Dancing

    2. Left To My Own Devices

    3. It’s Alright

    4. So Hard

 

Side D

    1. Being Boring

    2. Where The Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)

    3. Jealousy

    4. DJ Culture

    5. Was It Worth It?

New Music: The Bog Body

           

Viagra Boys released their newest single "The Bog Body" their latest banger from their upcoming album "Viagr Aboys", the track is accompanied by a curious music video to go with the tune's mayhem. Directed by Eoin Glaister explains, "I love bog bodies. I'm obsessed. Thank GOD someone finally wrote a song about one" Dream gig really, got to spend the day in the pub with my mates watching a Bog Lady dance to one of my favorite bands.

Rocktrospectiva: Depeche Mode's Masterpiece "Violator" Turns 35

Released on 19 March, 1990, "Violator," was the seventh album by the iconic British band Depeche Mode, marked a turning point in their vibrant career. Ironically, its soft, dark, and melancholic sound would earn them more fame than its noisy predecessor.  

The album spawned four singles "Personal Jesus", "Enjoy The Silence", both peaked No. 10 in hte UK and USA, "Policy Of Truth" and "World In My Eyes". Violator reached number two on the UK Albums Chart, and was the band's first album to chart inside the top 10 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number seven. The album was supported by the World Violation Tour. 

 

The Basildon band had been building a solid career supported by the release of good and competitive albums that attracted fans to their cause, this caused the level of demand in production to grow, applying new practices that cemented their sound although without straying too far from synth pop, but the change was so significant with "Violator" that they came to cause a global impact. 

 

They had just released the iconic "101" that appealed to the 87-88 tour, and so it was that at the pinnacle of their career when they hired Flood for production, and the choice of Flood was more than appropriate, the guy came from working with New Order, Ministry, U2, Erasure, and Nick Cave, proving that he could change the sound to make it fabulous and indeed that was what happened in this album, which was a masterpiece and the most successful to date.  

 

The recording process was different and Wilder proposed to reduce the pre-production time, Gore presented demos, as long as the rest presented other ideas that would even allow to finish the song, and so came 1989 when the band began to record in Milan, with François Kevorkian a French DJ with whom they obtained the first song that would be the first single "Personal Jesus", which was released on August 29, a song that was promoted by a curious campaign that included classified ads with the phrase "Your Own Personal Jesus", there was a phone number that if you dialed you could listen to the entire song, this allowed the song to reach No. 13 in the United Kingdom and in the United States it was the best-selling single for the Warner label.  

 

Then came the incredible "Enjoy The Silence," whose imprint can be traced in previous releases. The song was a hit everywhere, around that time, a memorable event occurred related with the released of this album. To promote the album's release, the band, in collaboration with Los Angeles station KROQ, decided to hold an event at the Warehouse Records. They didn't expect much of a commotion, but everything got out of hand, with nearly 30,000 people showing up. So there was trouble, people were injured from cuts sustained when many were pushed into the store's window. So, to prevent further damage, Depeche Mode handed out limited-edition cassette tapes. But to this day, it remains one of the band's most iconic moments. 

 

Other fantastics tracks were "Policy of Truth," another huge one played everywhere late that 1990. It wasn't as successful but remains one of the key songs in the band's career. Another song called "World in My Eyes" was the final single. Videos were brilliant thanks to Anton Corbijn's direction, giving them a key visual aesthetic that ties the sound together. 

 

As for the rest of the tracks,  they are equally intense and sophisticated as the singles, you had the libidinous "Sweetest Perfection," the dramatic "Halo, the sexy and exquisite "Waiting for the Night," and finally, the album's closing "Clean," making this work something intense and sophisticated that was perfectly suited for that era. 

 

Now 35 years later, it still sounds so fresh and timeless, marking the band's defining moment and its peak performance to date, some critics called the album as the most arresting work to dat by the band, nothing out of place of this album, simply the best record of the band at their career peak, and of course a quintessential benchmark of pop, rock and of course electronic music. 

 

Violator Track List: 

 

1. World In My Eyes

2. Sweetest Perfection

3. Personal Jesus

4. Halo

5. Waiting For The Night

6. Enjoy The Silence

7. Policy Of Truth

8. Blue Dress

9. Clean 

Rocktrospectiva: The Largely Forgotten Album "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" Turns 35

Released on 16 March 1990 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, was the soundtrack to the 1990 New Line Cinema film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Soundtrack spawned two singles "Spin That Wheel" and "Turtle Power".

 

It was released by SBK Records and contained a collection made up mostly of hip-hop and new jack swing styled tracks who were pretty hip at the late 80's early 90's with several film score cues at the end. 

 

A largely forgotten album from the first motion picture related to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who made their worldwide debut in the late 80's and early 90's, came in a time when these were the fifth selling toy item and this motion picture was designed to further imprint the accessible, memorable characters, even though the movie effects now it seems like something pretty much primitive compared the latest one, but pretty much in depth that was the magic of this first movie of the franchise, a particulary odd one, but that was the way early in the 90s.

 

The soundtrack were formidable, containing tracks that basically catch up the sound that dominated pop radio in the late 80's and early 90's a collection full of good rap/hip hop, new jack swing, and some R&B tracks. Partners in Kryme's hit single "Turtle Power" was awesome,  as is John Du Perez's martial arts movie theme, other tracks deliver the swinging, punchy sound's of early nineties R&B just like "Spunkadelic's "9.95" and Johnny Kemp's "Let The Walls Come Down", and of course rap/hip hop tunes such as M.C. Hammer's "This Is What We Do" released during the time when Hammer was the hip hop king, and of course some dance rap tunes pretty much in the sound of Technotronic's Hi Tek 3 in collaboration with Ya Kid K in "Spin That Wheel". 

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Track List: 

 

1. This Is What We Do

2. Spin That Wheel

3. Family

4. 9.95

5. Turtle Power

6. Let The Walls Come Down

7. Every Heart Needs A Home

8. Ninja Thieves

9. Splinter's Tale I & Splinter's Tale II

10. Turtle Rhapsody 

New Music: This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice

           

Yorke and Pritchard announced a full collaborative album and shared another track "This Conversation Is Missing Your Voice" has off-kilter production full of softly sustained drones and pulsing, krautrock-style drum programming. Over that track, Yorke sings in his feathery falsetto, going for the sort of softly soulful style that he only occasionally indulges. The end result sounds a lot like something that Yorke might’ve released under his own name in the ’00s. The cool video is under the direction again of Jonathan Zawada.

New Music: Phantoms And Monsters

           

Composed by Mark Springer with Neil Tennant on vocals "Phantoms And Monsters" is a quintet piece and the opening track of Mark Springer's forthcoming new album "Sleep Of Reason" which will be released according to Pet Shop Boys site, along with a solo piano piece and a quartet piece on 25th April 2025.

Rocktrospectiva: The Original And Weird "Pretty Woman: Original Motion Picture Sountrack" Turns 35

Released on 13 March 1990 "Pretty Woman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" was the soundtrack album to the 1990 US romantic comedy film set in Los Angeles, a hit movie that revitalized Richard Gere's career, and made a superstar of Julia Roberts. The album features the song "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, which inspired the movie title. The soundtrack spawned three singles "Wild Women Do", "It Must Have Been Love" and "King Of Wishful Thinking". 

 

A sort of modern Cinderella film, portraying a hooker with beautiful heart that captures the attention of a multimillionarie business man, a dark romantic comedy that made it big into the big screen in 1990, whether you love it or not. 

 

The soundtrack is kinda of rare, a collection of diferent sort of bands and artists, maybe because the album belonged to an era when soundtracks were the songs used in a film, and weren't ways to synergistically cross-promote artists using songs that had nothing to do with the movie, or were "inspired" by the film, but don't actually appear within it. 

 

So you have here, Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," for obvious reasons, a nice remix of David Bowie "Fame '90" which was released simultaneosnly with the compilation "Changesbowie" the day before, and of course plenty of ‘90s pop, including Roxette and Go West who were used as a singles, even though many critics believe most of the songs are place in a very specific time and haven't aged well, but are a fantastic testimony of simpler times.

 

Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love", originally released in December 1987, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1990. It also includes "King of Wishful Thinking" by Go West, the odd one "Show Me Your Soul" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, "No Explanation" by Peter Cetera, "Wild Women Do" by Natalie Cole the first single and "Fallen" by Lauren Wood. 

 

Pretty Woman: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Track List:

 

1. Wild Women Do

2. Fame '90

3. King Of Wishful Thinking

4. Tangled

5. It Must Have Been Love

6. Life In Detail

7. No Explanation

8. Real Wild Child

9. Fallen

10. Oh. Pretty Woman

11. Show Me Your Soul  

New Music: Innocent Money

           

Last 8 November, Primal Scream released their 11th., studio album "Come Ahead" and now they're sharing a new single "Innocent Money" a few days ago, a Pet Shop Boys remix version was available and now they come with the official single a trendy disco track with Bobbie Gillespie playing and singing alongside with two choir girls, a crystal ball and their discomania look-a-like.

Rocktrospectiva: The Succesful And Positive "Dream Into Action" Turns 40

Released on 11 March 1985 "Dream Into Action" was the second studio album by British pop musician Howard Jones. The album reached No. 2 in the UK Album Charts and also reached the top ten in the U.S. The album achieved a gold certification in the UK and platinum status in the US and Canada.  The album spawned the hit singles "Things Can Only Get Better", "Life In One Day", "No One Is To Blame" and "Look Mama". The 1984 single "Like to Get to Know You Well" was included on the album's CD reissue and is also on the US version of the vinyl album. 

Followed up his chart-topping debut with an even better album, "Dream Into Action". A sort of those albums that you listen to from beginning to end, with nearly song taking a turn as your favorite over time, practically captured everything that was best about electronic dance pop at the time.

Howard Jones a clear communicator who makes a real connection with his audience, you can check "Life in One Day" is a self-help session, the ballad "No One Is to Blame" is simply heartbreaking, You have in "Dream Into Action" a sound advice to heal division. Throughout, Jones and producer Rupert Hine strike just the right balance between technology and humanity. Even when Jones is preaching about animal rights on "Assault and Battery", you can appreciate the music behind the message.

With "Look Mama",you have a plea for independence "Bounce Right Back" is Jones’ playful rap attack, "Elegy" could be the antithesis, and then you have perfect track to continue to balance between dark and light, ending with the atmospheric and heavy "Hunger for the Flesh."

It's fantastic to realise that the album have aged well forty years later, an album that talk about all the good things back in 1985 and still sounds fantastic today, providing great mental music, a bright album that epitomizes the sound of the mainstream in the mid-'80s, and that's why Dream Into Action is, in many ways, the apotheosis of Howard Jones' career, including his sound, machines and positivity that distinguished him from the rest of synth poppers in the mid-'80s. 

 

Dream Into Action Track List:

 

1. Things Can Only Get Better

2. Life In One Day

3. Dream Into Action

4. No One Is To Blame

5. Look Mama

6. Assault And Battery

7. Automaton

8. Is There A Difference?

9. Elegy

10. Specialty

11. Why Look For The Key

12. Hunger For The Flesh

13. Bounce Right Back

14. Like To Get To Know You Well