This compilation CD contains some of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s greatest hits from their 25 year career including New York City boy, Left to my own devices and Bush/Blair satire I’m with Stupid plus their new single Together.
Included alongside the CD is a DVD featuring the pair’s appearances on BBC television from a Top of The Pops performance of West End Girls through to this year’s appearance at Glastonbury.
As well as providing a visual history of the band, the DVD also nicely includes TV performances of songs such as ‘Rent’ which didn’t make the CD.
Together the CD and DVD are a glorious celebration of one of British music’s most important and iconic acts and, though fans will already own all of the ‘classic’ songs, the DVD and new song ensure this ‘greatest hits’ compilation is magnificent value for money.
The DVD serves another, sadder, purpose in highlighting the folly of successive unimaginative BBC One controllers in first cancelling, and then refusing to revive, Top of The Pops.
This release is largely only possible because the nation’s most-watched channel offered a weekly, mass audience music programme which put the biggest acts of the day in front of a general TV audience.
Revelling in the DVD’s visual chronicling of the Pet Shop Boys career, it’s impossible not to conclude that the absence of a regular Top of The Pops series is diminishing our nation’s future cultural archive is in some way.
Ultimate Pet Shop Boys is available to buy from the seenit.co.uk store
