News: Obscure Pet Shop Boys/Volume

The Pet Shop Boys have announced a five-show run in London dedicated to the most obscure corners of their catalog. Aptly titled "Obscure Pet Shop Boys", the shows at Camden's 1,500-cap Electric Ballroom will see Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant perform non-album singles, B-sides and other deep cuts. 

 

The residency runs from April 6th through 10th next year, and all profits from the April 8th show will go to War Child. In a statement, Lowe and Tennant said they're "very excited at the prospect of going deeper into our song catalogue in these shows." 

The run follows Pet Shop Boys' greatest hits tour in 2023, which saw the duo play in Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast and more last year. Their July 2023 show at Copenhagen's Royal Arena was turned into a concert film, Dreamworld, which premiered in August 2024.

Also, marking the 40th., anniversary of the release of their first album, Please, in 1986,  the beloved Pet Heads are announcing "Pet Shop Boys Volume" which is the definitive retrospective and complete visual record of the duo’s career, presented year by year in a contemporary literary format. The limited edition of 750 is now sold out.

Pet Shop Boys:  Three-time Brit Award winners and six-time Grammy nominees, have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, including No. 1 hits ‘West End girls’, ‘It’s a sin’ and ‘Always on my mind’, and platinum-selling albums Please, Actually, and Very. Uniquely spanning the worlds of music, art, film, theatre, design, and fashion, Pet Shop Boys have forged an identity as unforgettable as their sound. From the seminal graphic design of their record sleeves to their groundbreaking videos and innovative stage shows, they have set the bar for the visual presentation of pop.

Expanding upon Pet Shop Boys Catalogue, published two decades ago, this book presents their entire visual output to date year by brilliant year. Sleeve artworks and packaging, stills from every video, film, and performance, stage sets and costume designs, photoshoots, publications and even Christmas cards all feature, as does every collaboration with luminaries including Mark Farrow, Wolfgang Tillmans, Martin Parr, Bruce Weber, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Scott King, Zaha Hadid, Tom Scutt and Es Devlin.

Concise commentaries by Chris Heath and Philip Hoare provide illuminating insights into the genesis of each project. Hoare’s original introduction is accompanied by a new introduction from Libby Sellers, who considers the importance of Pet Shop Boys within the history of design, while a new foreword by Jeremy Deller reflects on the enduring impact of their music and image. 

With a cover and slipcase designed by Farrow and a brand-new conversation between Heath, Tennant and Lowe, Pet Shop Boys Volume is a visual feast and a sumptuous tribute to four decades of creative innovation.

Specification:

234 × 156 mm
592 pages
Hardback
Slipcase

Rocktrospectiva: The Beautiful "Being Boring" Turns 35

Released on 12 November 1990 "Being Boring" was the se second single from the Pet Shop Boys fourth studio album "Behaviour", the song was written by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant, and produced by them with German producer Harold Faltermeyer. It reached number 20 on the UK Singles Chart, marking the duo's first single to miss the top 10 since "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" in 1986. Its music video was directed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber.

The song was concerned with the idea of growing up and how people's perceptions and values change as they grow older. The title originated from a Japanese review that accused the duo of being boring, in reference to their "famously deadpan presentation". The phrase reminded Neil Tennant of a 1922 quotation by Zelda Fitzgerald, "she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring", which had been paraphrased on a party invitation from his friend Christopher Dowell in the 1970s. As teenagers in Newcastle, they had agreed that they wouldn't settle for boring lives.

In a 1993 interview, Tennant described "Being Boring" as "one of the best songs that we've written", and said that "For me it is a personal song because it's about a friend of mine who died of AIDS, and so it's about our lives when we were teenagers and how we moved to London, and I suppose me becoming successful and him becoming ill".

"Being Boring" was written between 1989 and 1990. The track was originally demoed in a studio in West Glasgow, where the music for "My October Symphony", "The End of the World" and the unreleased "Love and War" were also written. Chris Lowe decided that the music should emulate Stock Aitken Waterman by going up a semitone into the chorus, to give it an uplifting feeling. The verse ends on G and goes up to A-flat instead of C for the chorus.

The lyrics for the first verse, about the 1920s quote on the party invitation, and the second verse, about leaving Newcastle for London in the 1970s, had materialised by that point. Tennant wrote the final verse in 1990, in a rented room in Munich, wishing that his friend was still there. Tennant has called "Being Boring" an autobiographical elegy for his friend, Dowell, who died in 1989.

The demo was presented to producer Harold Faltermeyer at Red Deer Studios, Munich, whose expertise in analog synthesizers came to the forefront in the song's production. The basis of the song was laid with Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-909 drum machines, plus a Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer. Synthesizers used included a Roland Jupiter-8 (which makes up the layered textures in the introduction and the melody line throughout), an Oberheim OB-8 (which was blended with the Jupiter-8 for the main melody) and a Synclavier (for the harp glissandos). 

Further work was done at Sarm West Studios in London with Julian Mendelsohn; the "wakka-wakka" guitar line by J.J. Belle (influenced by Isaac Hayes's Theme from Shaft (1971)) was recorded there, among a few other parts.

"Being Boring" debuted at number 36 and peaked at number 20 the following week. At the time, it was the least successful Pet Shop Boys single in the period since "West End Girls" had become their first hit.

In 2024, Pet Shop Boys released a new recording of "Being Boring" on Furthermore, the bonus EP with the two-disc version of their fifteenth album, Nonetheless. In the middle of the song, Tennant says the words that are written at the beginning of the music video.

The single cover (pictured) was designed by Mark Farrow with photographs by the Douglas Brothers. The layout is essentially the same as the album cover of Behaviour. The quote attributed to Zelda Fitzgerald was included on the back cover.

Critices called the song "wistful",  "Hardly boring, but certainly one of their most gently-handled tracks. The Scandal-style productions puts the emphasis on the charming lyrics which deliver the Tennant muse in oblique phrases, not unlike those found in a New Order song. As usual its appeal is enhanced with each airing and, equally, it will enjoy a sustained chart performance." In 2023, The Guardian named "Being Boring" as the best Pet Shop Boys song: "Not just one of the greatest songs about the Aids epidemic, but one of the greatest songs written about mortality and memory".

The song was not initially played on the 1991 Performance tour, leading many fans, including Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses, to complain about its omission. As a result, it was added as an encore late in the tour, with the band commenting that it "invariably got the best reception of the night".

Track List:

 

7-inch, cassette and mini CD Single

 

1. Being Boring

2. We All Feel Better in the Dark

 

12-inch single: 

 

A. Being Boring (extended mix)

B. We All Feel Better in the Dark 

 

12-inch remix single:

 

A1. Being Boring (Marshall Jefferson remix)

B1. We All Feel Better in the Dark (After Hours Climax)

B2. We All Feel Better in the dark (Ambient)

 

CD Single:

 

1. Being Boring

2. We All Feel Better in the Dark

3. Being Boring (extended mix) 

Rocktrospectiva: The Massive "Play Deep" Turns 40

Released on 12 November 1985 "Play Deep" was the debut studio album by English rock band the Outfield. The album received widespread popularity with the success of their debut single, "Say It Isn't So" (a regional number-one hit), which reached number 18 on the U.S. rock chart, and the follow-up single, "Your Love", which reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986. Play Deep peaked at number 9 on the U.S. albums chart. In total, four of the tracks reached the charts: the aforementioned two, along with "Everytime You Cry" and "All the Love". 

Play Deep, contained a couple of singles that settled quite nicely into mid-'80s radio. Guided by Tony Lewis' airborne vocals and John Spinks' regimented guitar bluster, they managed to place two of the album's best songs within Billboard's Top 20. "Your Love" made it all the way to the number six spot, thanks to Lewis' high-pitched holler that dominates the opening of the song and a harmonious chorus that is overly smooth and rock savvy, "All the Love in the World" was an unblemished rock tune with an effectively echoed vocal track, again highlighting the band's sweet-sounding consonance mixed in with rugged guitar work. The uncharted material sounds just as fluent and was anything but filler, especially efforts like "Say It Isn't So" and "I Don't Need Her," along with slower songs like "Everytime You Cry."

The album was a worthy first release from this British trio, led by a novel guitar and vocal concoction, on the other hand, the band wasn't too succesful in ther native UK, the singles, "Your Love" and "All the Love", reached numbers 83 and 96, respectively, on the UK Singles Chart.

The album is considered nowadays a masterpiece for its genre with nary a bad track to be found and made its niche within the pantheon of mid 80's Pop Rock music and bands. Fortunately, this band shined so bright and created an album that you considered classic on its own, the perfect epitaph for Tony Lewis and John Spinks.

 

Play Deep Track List: 

 

1. Say It Isn't So

2. Your Love

3. I Don't Need Her

4. Everytime You Cry

5. 61 Seconds

6. Mystery Man

7. All The Love

8. Taking My Chances

9. Nervous Alibi

News: Fav Morvan Earns A Grammy Nomination 35 Years After Milli Vanilli Controversy

Remember one of the biggest scandals in the history of the Grammy Awards, when Milli Vanilli won the Best New Artist Grammy Award in 1990, despite never singing a note on their breakout album Girl You Know It’s True.

Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, the two men who fronted the group while lip synching to the vocals of studio musicians, had their Grammy revoked after the scandal broke, several months following their win.

But now, more than 30 years after being unfairly embarrassed and blacklisted by the industry, Fab Morvan has earned a legit Grammy nomination for the 2026 ceremony. Morvan's Grammy nomination is not for singing — it's for reading the audiobook version of his memoir, You Know It’s True: The Real Story Of Milli Vanilli. He’s a nominee in the category Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording.

Making this story even wilder is that Morvan is competing against the Dalai Lama.The spiritual leader earned a nomination for reading Meditations: The Reflections Of His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Another high-profile nominee in the category is Supreme Court justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, nominated for reading Lovely One: A Memoir. The other nominees are comedian and long-time Grammy host Trevor Noah and Kathy Garver, an actress who read the Carol Connors autobiography Elvis, Rocky & Me.

On Facebook, Morvan celebrated his achievement, writing,  "Yes ladies and gentlemen it’s official, we made it to the nomination, which means the book is nominated for best audio book, story telling, and narration …To be continued. Peace one love.

Probably Fav won't win but deep inside of us we want him to win as a redemption, indeed  a lot of people now have sympathetic feelings toward Milli Vanilli. The VH1 Behind the Music episode on the duo showed how they were essentially tricked into fronting the act, and how they were not allowed to sing, even though they wanted to. So it’s entirely possible that some modern Grammy voters will see Fab’s name and decide to give him a vote.

Fab's memoir You Know It’s True: The Real Story Of Milli Vanilli gave detailed insight into his plight as he and Rob were signed to a record deal, but then told by producer Frank Farian that they wouldn’t be singing. In the book (and the nominated audiobook), Fab described his confusion when he and Rob learned that they wouldn't be allowed to sing on "Girl You Know It's True": That didn't make any sense to me. Frank wanted someone else to sing the song? It took me a few tries to even grasp what he was saying, and what that meant for us… It became clear that we signed a contract, but it wasn't for us to sing. It was for someone else to sing.

He went on to explain, "What no one bothered to explain was, the contract locked us in for three albums. The contract was written in German, and I certainly couldn’t read it."

Now the irony is that nowadays, there's been a growing "Give Milli Vanilli their Grammy back" movement, as lip synching has become more commonplace and accepted in today's pop music world. There are even fictitious bands such as KPop Demon Hunters, getting nominated at the Grammys. Accomplished R&B producer Jermain Dupri recently called out the seeming hypocrisy of the Grammys stripping the duo of their award, while AI artists are now charting on Billboard. 

The ultimate irony is that Fab can really sing. Over the years, he's found his voice, and he still performs for welcoming crowds in Europe. I've long wondered why no superstar rap artists have approached Fab to offer him a feature on a song. That sort of outside-the-box thinking would be a cool way to honor Milli Vanilli's legacy — not to mention a great way to get a lot of attention in today's social media world.

New Music: The Riff That Won't Quit

          

The iconical rock band Cheap Trick has shared a new video for their latest single, "The Riff That Won't Quit." The black and white clip gives fan a behind-the-scenes look at the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers in the studio while they work on new music. The track is the second song Cheap Trick has released from their upcoming album All Washed Up, which is Cheap Trick's first album since 2021's In Another World. It will be released digitally, on CD and on black vinyl and there will also be an orange marble variant, limited to 1,000 copies, sold through the band’s website.

In Memoriam: Living In A Box Singer "Richard Darbyshire" Has Died Aged 65

Richard Darbyshire, the former frontman of 80s pop band Living In A Box, has died at the age of 65. Formed in Sheffield, the band scored a worldwide hit with their debut single - also called Living In A Box - in 1987, and had two further top 10 hits in the UK.

Darbyshire's vocals gave the group a soulful edge, particularly on the brooding ballad Room In Your Heart. But he left the band in 1989 after personnel changes at their record label caused artistic differences during the recording of their third album.

After releasing a solo record in 1994, he went on to write songs for artists including Lisa Stansfield, Jennifer Rush and Level 42.

The musician died on Monday 10 November, his family confirmed to the BBC, adding: "We are all very sad but his memory and songs will live on." No cause of death was given. 

In a statement, his former bandmates paid tribute to his "incredible talent". "His vocal skills knew no bounds, from the driving raw power of our first, eponymous hit song, to the tender heart-melting charm of Room In Your Heart, Richard, truly, could do it all.

His guitar playing, though less recognised, was equally accomplished. As a songwriter, Richard was at the heart of everything we did; a pure craftsman and a master of his art.

"Richard, wherever you are, [we] will miss you dearly. The laughs we had, the wildcat ride we went on, will never be forgotten."

Darbyshire was born in Stockport, Cheshire, and educated in Manchester until, at the age of 13, he followed his parents to Japan, where he attended an American boarding school. After studying English Literature at Oxford University, he joined a Manchester band called Zu Zu Sharks, which also included Adam and the Ants bassist Gary Tibbs. They scored a minor European hit with the synth-pop single Love Tumbles Down in 1983, but Darbyshire left the band soon afterwards.

He was working on solo material when he met drummer Anthony "Tich" Critchlow and keyboard player Marcus Vere at a studio in Sheffield. They were already working on a demo of the song Living In A Box, and invited him to sing the lead vocals. The results earned the band a five-album record deal - with their eponymous song becoming a Top 20 hit in the US.

"The impact of the first single was so enormous," Vere told Music Techonolgy magazine in 1987. "It came from nowhere and shot straight up the charts. The vice-president of marketing in the States said it's the fastest single they've had in four years." Soul legend Bobby Womack later recorded his own version, and duetted with Darbyshire on the single So the Story Goes.

For their second album, Gatecrashing, the band also enlisted the help of Queen's Brian May, who played guitar on the track Blow The House Down, a top 10 hit in 1989. Although the band broke up before their third album was completed, some of the songs resurfaced on Darbyshire's 1994 solo record How Many Angels.

Living in a Box reformed in 2016 with replacement vocalist Kenny Thomas, and are currently touring with their third singer Bryan Chambers.

Before his death, Darbyshire had been holding songwriting workshops in London. He is survived by his wife, the vocal coach Sonia Jones. "In some ways Richard was the most reluctant of pop stars, always eschewing the limelight that inevitably came with the success we had," his former bandmates reflected on Instagram on Tuesday. He hated the photo shoots, the interviews, the TV appearances and thought it was all a bit daft. He was happiest in the studio, guitar in hand, working on the next song.

New Music: Juice

           

White Lies are releasing their latest single "Juice" taken from the band's brand new album "Night Light"  the single is one of the album's more anthemic moments and points melodies that dying to be exposed on big stages, the track is beautiful and sorrowful but hopeful in the end 

Rocktrospectiva: The Positive Debut Solo Album By Feargal Sharkey Turns 40

Released on 11 November 1985 "Feargal Sharkey" was the debut solo album by former Undertones singer Feargal Sharkey, released in 1985. The album peaked at No. 12 in the UK and contains Sharkey's best known single, "A Good Heart", and his only No. 1. "You Little Thief" also became a top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 5, and "Someone to Somebody" reached No. 64 and a final single "It's All Over Now".  

The album was produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics who Sharkey had met in an elevator seven years previously. Sharkey said, "We both had the same commitment to excellence, to finding great songs. Whether they were our own or other people's didn't matter." The Irish singer's solo debut opens with a perfectly conceived and executed cover of Maria McKee's "A Good Heart" that deservedly shot to number one on the United Kingdom charts. The former Undertones frontman has a shot at songwriting with producer David A. Stewart, but wisely borrows numbers by Chrissie Hynde, Benmont Tench, and the Womack brothers on his favor to achieved certain success on charts.

Veteran Eurythmics producer and guitarist Stewart and arranger Michael Kamen provided a fitting R&B backdrop for the headliner, who would not reach these heights again, this made the lead singer of the Undertones while performing R&B sounded like a winning combination, as did a collaboration with Dave Stewart, however, the overproduction meant both that Sharkey's voice strained to compete with the backing instrumentation, while some tracks were anchored in the pit time of production that they now appear outdated. 

Curiously, the worst tracks on the album were those jointly composed by Sharkey and Stewart, while the highlight tracks are the two lead singles, this aided the singer to earn certain degree of Top-40 costuming. 

Feargal Sharkey Track List:  

 

1. A Good Heart 

2. You Little Thief

3. Ghost Train

4. Ashes And Diamonds 

5. Made To Measure

6. Someone To Somebody

7. Don't Leave It To Nature

8. Love And Hate

9. Bitter Man

10. It's All Over Now 

Books: The Drums

 

The Smiths need no introduction. Formed in 1982 and disbanded in 1987, all four of their studio albums reached the top five in the UK charts. They are widely lauded as one of the most influential groups of all time.

Mike Joyce is the last member of the iconical band to release their autobiography and this is his no-holds-barred story of what it was like to play the drums in the Smiths. Throughout his honest and witty reflections, Mike answers the question he and bassist Andy Rourke used to often ask each other: 'Where did it all go right?'

A lot of the Smiths' past is already canonised. Rather than retelling those well-documented iconic moments, in The Drums, Mike conveys 'the feeling' of his time in the band. His off-piste, frank and witty perspective allows him to re-contextualise fan favourite moments through a beautifully vulnerable, human insight into his life.

The written history of the Smiths is not missing an encyclopedic account of everything that happened over the years; but Mike's honest, entertaining and deeply human memoir is what Smiths fans have been waiting for. This book truly conveys what it felt like to be a member of the Smiths.

In The Drums, Mike Joyce finally gives us the perspective of the self-confessed biggest Smiths fan in the world who from the start was just some lad from the suburbs of Fallowfield who played the drums.

Title: The Drums

Author: Mike Joyce

Language: English

Publisher: New Modern 

Pages: 272

Albums: Everybody Scream

"Everybody Scream" the first album in three years for Briton Florence + The Machine, a haunting and cathartic sixth album for the outfit, so far, the album has released four singles "Everybody Scream", "One Of The Greats", "Symphathy Magic" & "Buckle". 

The story began on 3 July when singer Florence Welch commenced to shared a series of images that showed Welch working with Idles guitarist Mark Bowen, and included mentions of themes, such as "witchcraft, folk horror, mysticism, magic, poetry [and] insanity". More cryptic teasers, including a short video of herself in a red dress digging a hole in a field before screaming into it, arrive on August and then, the album was officially announced on 19 August 2025, with a release date of 31 October 2025. The cover art features a fisheye-lens shot of Welch lying on a bed in a wooden setting, wearing a black-and-white outfit.

The album, which follows on from 2022's Dance Fever, was created during and inspired by a time of healing and discovering the body's limits for Welch, who underwent life-saving surgery during 2023's Dance Fever Tour. Because of this, she feels Everybody Scream is her most personal Florence and the Machine album to date. She also mentioned the project's title coming from the idea of celebratory screaming and her exploration of why people would be screaming and the emotions and reasons associated with such a physical and emotional act

The album dedicated to finding strength in release from physical and psychological inhibitions with its traditiona arena-pop baroque, horizon-spanning anthems of resilience furnished with cinematic strings, gargantuan drums, and, yes, the occasional scream. While touring Dance Fever in 2023, Welch underwent life-saving surgery, which she's now revealed was due to massive internal bleeding caused by an ectopic pregnancy. The trauma of miscarriage is evident in the fury that fuels Everybody Scream: “Sometimes my body seems so alien to me,” Welch sings over the steady chug of "Kraken," sounding despairingly numb before transforming into a creature of wrath. On "The Old Religion," she dreams of immateriality, yearning to be free of her physical self so long as it means relief from pain.

Idles’ Mark Bowen and the National’s Aaron Dessner handle the bulk of the album’s production. Bowen’s influence suggests itself in a slightly more raucous approach, at least by Florence and the Machine standards. The opening title track springs from cascading harp to monstrous drones as it celebrates the safe haven of the concert hall, "Drink Deep," drives a drill into the earth’s core as Welch’s quivering melisma becomes an incantation, somewhat like the ominous commands of Michael Gira.

On several songs, Welch uses the hero’s journey as a framework; once you recognize it in her writing, you begin to hear it in the instrumental arrangements, too, but surprisingly the album’s most successful song is the six-and-half-minute-long "One of the Greats," which builds and builds and finally bursts, only dropping in a layered chorus and Tom Moth’s harp arrangement in its final act. As growling guitar and drums kick in, Welch purges, well, everything: creative insecurities; the itching dilemma that she’s built a career on hysteria at the cost of perpetuating her pain; her grievances with male entitlement—how do they keep getting away with making subpar records? Vivid and free-associative, it sounds like an argument she’s been having with herself for years, another highlight is "Sympapht Magic", its ambition and vulnerability come closest to fulfilling Everybody Scream’s mission to let it all out. Welch spends a sizable portion of the album ready to burn everything down, and she’s been here often enough to know that she can always rebuild, the soft "Buckle" it's a simple nice track a formidable one included in this rare but interesting record. 

The album has received positive acclaim, cause the album represents so many things and it's furnished of felling such as guttural with a huge mystical aesthetic proving again the fascinantion Welch has with the occult, despite the contrasting lyricism especially in tracks such as "One Of The Greats" but in the other hand, the album has the title track as something huge satisfying and different in certain ways that anything the band has produced before. 

 

Everybody Screams Track List:  

 

1. Everybody Scream

2. One Of The Greats

3. Witch Dance

4. Sympathy Magic

5. Perfume And Milk

6. Buckle

7. Kraken

8. The Old Religion

9. Drink Deep

10. Music By Men

11. You Can Have It All

12. And Love