The Pet Shop Boys have never made a bad album, but with Nightlife, they started to seem a little worn out, as if they had explored their sound as far as it would go. But Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are among the smartest, pop-savvy groups to ever record, so they not only realized they were stagnating, they knew what to do about it, bringing Tennant's Electronic partner and former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr for several songs, and moving the group toward careful, considered, mature pop for their eighth album, Release (another pun-worth title, worthy of Please). For most artists, the adjective "mature" would seem an epithet, but here it's an accurate description for this elegant, eloquent, knowing music -- it's maturation achieved through experience and worldliness, not an exorbitant bank account. On that level, this is about the most mature pop album released this decade, exhibiting a refined sense of craft and a keen sense of purpose, marrying the particular sentiment of a song with the right production. It's hard to call Release an album of its time, since it hardly falls prey to trends, but it's aware of its time -- an album that's proudly out of step with the particulars of hipness, but knows what they constitute, knows what they feel like, knows what modernism means for somebody who's lived their life with the burden of being hip, whose always felt a compulsion to stay on top of things -- and feeling that desire fade as you get older. So, that means that while Release occasionally sings of the new -- synth lines, vocoders, beats, a song designed to respond to Eminem's homophobia (the exquisite "The Night I Fell in Love") -- it's from the vantage of people who have lived through all of this before, and know particulars will pass while the song remains the same. The great thing is, even if this sentiment has been present in previous Pet Shop Boys albums, they have brought the dance-club to the background (partially due to Marr's presence) and have brought the songs to the forefront, resulting in a record that feels like the Pet Shop Boys, even when it doesn't sound like them. And that's a good thing, since it retains their greatest attributes while giving them a new spin, and it makes for the best Pet Shop Boys album in nearly ten years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Michael Brauer (Mixing), Mike Ross (Engineer), Richard Niles (String Arrangements), Steve Fallone (Assistant), Pete Gleadall (Engineer), Chris Lowe (Drum Programming), Chris Zippel (Producer), Steve Walters (Guitar (Bass)), Little Mike (Guitar), Richard Niles (String Conductor), Florian Richter (Pre-Mixing), Andrew Nicholls (Assistant), Jody Linscott (Percussion), Johnny Marr (Guitar), Little Mike (Bass), Eric Briner (Assistant), Roxanna Ashton (Assistant), Michael Leonard (A&R), Neil Tennant (Vocals), Chris Zippel (Voices), Steve Fallone (Mastering Assistant), Philip Rose (Mixing), Neil Tennant (Keyboards), Chris Zippel (Engineer), Greg Foley (Art Direction), Chris Zippel (Keyboards), Mike Ross (String Engineer), Andrew Nicholls (Assistant Engineer), Chris Lowe (Keyboards), Neil Tennant (Guitar), Pennie Smith (Portrait Photography), Steve Walters (Bass), Pete Gleadall (Programming), Steve Fallone (Assistant Mastering Engineer), Greg Calbi (Mastering), Pet Shop Boys (Producer), Richard Niles (Conductor), Philip Rose (Assistant), Pennie Smith (Portraits)
After the release of their previous studio album, Nightlife, it was originally planned that they would release a greatest hits collection in the autumn of 2000 with the two new tracks "Positive Role Model" and "Somebody Else's Business".[1] Whilst recording the new songs for the hits collection it was decided to produce a full studio album instead.
Release was the least commercially successful of all Pet Shop Boys albums to date, though still managed to sell 800,000 copies worldwide. In the UK it charted at number 7, in Germany at number 3.[2] On its first release, a limited run of metallic effect embossed sleeves were available in a choice of four colours: grey, blue, pink or red. In the USA, this limited run also came with a bonus CD including remixes and new tracks. The artwork was designed by Greg Foley of the New York design group and magazine publishers, Visionaire, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.
The album marked a significant departure from previous work, being apparently guitar- and piano-driven. However the album was made like their previous albums with most tracks mainly programmed on computers; however the sampled or synthesised guitars and drum sounds chosen often sound "real" and the synthesisers always present are sometimes used to sound like guitars (the solo in "Birthday boy", for instance, or the opening figure of "Home and dry"). Ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was brought in later on in the sessions to play real electric and acoustic guitars on seven of the album's ten tracks. Apart from the track "London", recorded in Berlin with producer Chris Zippel, Pet Shop Boys produced the album themselves and then commissioned Michael Brauer (who mixed the first two albums by fellow Parlophone artists Coldplay) to mix it.
The original version of the album had eleven tracks but "I didn't get where I am today" was removed from the album before release and later became a bonus track on the 2004 single "Flamboyant". Other tracks recorded during the sessions for the album which ended up as b-sides are "Between two islands", "Searching for the face of Jesus", "Sexy Northerner" and "Always".[3] Another track, "Time on my hands", appeared on the 2003 release, Disco 3.
The directors for all three music videos for the album's singles are photographers by trade: Wolfgang Tillmans directed "Home and dry", Bruce Weber directed "I get along" (following his previous work on the "Being boring" and "Se a vida é" videos), and Martin Parr directed "London". The Tillmans video, consisting almost entirely of footage of mice filmed at Tottenham Court Road tube station in the London Underground, is considered by some to have significantly undermined the commercial potential of the lead single, due to being deemed nearly unplayable by MTV and other music video channels.
Perhaps partly because of the modest commercial success of this album, and perhaps partly because of the habit of distancing themselves musically from their most recent work, Tennant and Lowe have since returned to their dance roots. One year after the release of Release, Pet Shop Boys released Disco 3 which included remixes of some of the songs from Release along with new material that they were working on at the time of writing/producing material for Release.
MCMLXXXIX Tour ·Performance Tour ·Discovery Tour ·Somewhere Residency ·Nightlife Tour ·University Tour ·Release Tour ·Fundamental Tour ·Pandemonium Tour
