Please | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 24 March 1986 | |||
Recorded |
| |||
Studio | Advision (London) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 44:02 | |||
Label | Parlophone | |||
Producer | Stephen Hague | |||
Pet Shop Boys chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Please | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Christgau's Record Guide | A− [3] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [4] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [5] |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 8/10 [6] |
Uncut | 8/10 [7] |
Please is the debut studio album by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 24 March 1986 by Parlophone in the United Kingdom and by EMI America Records in the United States. According to the duo, the album's title was chosen so that people had to go into a record shop and say "Can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, 'Please'?". [8] Please spawned four singles: "West End Girls", "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)", "Suburbia", and "Love Comes Quickly"; "West End Girls" reached number one in both the UK and the US.
This section possibly contains original research .(January 2022) |
Please is musically simpler than, but lyrically just as rich as, Pet Shop Boys' later work[ according to whom? ]. The instrumentals are comparable to other techno pop of this period. As with many early PSB albums, the lyrics were considered androgynous. The stories they contain being equally applicable to gay and heterosexual relationships. Tennant, in particular, enjoyed this ambiguity [ citation needed ] and refused to comment on his own sexuality until he came out in a 1994 interview in Attitude magazine. [9]
The tiny cover photograph enclosed by a sea of white has been seen by some design observers[ who? ] as a reaction to the traditional album cover. With the new CD cases of the time being necessarily smaller than designs seen on 12" albums, the passport-sized photograph is far removed from standard cover artwork. The actual size of the image is the same size as a 35mm photographic negative. Although some commentators have remarked[ who? ] that "Two Divided by Zero" samples a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell toy from the 1980s, this is a myth. Neil Tennant stated in an interview in the BBC Radio documentary About Pet Shop Boys that the sample used on "Two Divided by Zero" was in fact a talking calculator he had bought for his father. The calculator was a Sharp Elsi Mate model EL-640.[ citation needed ].
Please was re-released on 4 June 2001 (as were most of the duo's studio albums up to that point) as Please/Further Listening 1984–1986. The re-released version was not only digitally remastered but came with a second disc of B-sides and previously unreleased material from around the time of the album's original release. Yet another re-release followed on 9 February 2009, under the title of Please: Remastered. This version contains only the 11 tracks on the original. With the 2009 re-release, the 2001 two-disc re-release was discontinued. On 2 March 2018 a new remastered edition of Further Listening was released, with 2001 edition content.
"Suburbia" was dramatically remixed for the single release.
"Violence" was later re-recorded by the Pet Shop Boys for a charity concert at The Haçienda nightclub in the early 1990s. This version, known as the 'Haçienda version', was released as one of the B-sides to "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" and was then made available on the B-sides album Alternative and the 2001 Further Listening re-release of the Very album.
The Pet Shop Boys later sampled the Please version of "Love Comes Quickly" for their song "Somebody Else's Business", which appeared on the Disco 3 album.
"Tonight Is Forever" was later covered by Liza Minnelli on the Pet Shop Boys-produced album Results .
Writing in 1986 for Billboard's "Dance Trax" column, Brian Chin described the album as an "amusingly complete compendium of recent dance music styles. It should be a long-running hit for clubs if the remixes keep coming." [10]
All tracks are written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, except where noted
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Two Divided by Zero" |
| 3:34 |
2. | "West End Girls" | 4:45 | |
3. | "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" | 3:43 | |
4. | "Love Comes Quickly" |
| 4:19 |
5. | "Suburbia" | 5:50 | |
6. | "Opportunities" (reprise) | 0:33 | |
7. | "Tonight Is Forever" | 4:31 | |
8. | "Violence" | 4:27 | |
9. | "I Want a Lover" | 4:50 | |
10. | "Later Tonight" | 2:46 | |
11. | "Why Don't We Live Together?" | 4:44 | |
Total length: | 44:02 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "A Man Could Get Arrested" (12-inch B-side; previously unreleased) | 4:11 | |
2. | "Opportunities" (full-length original 7-inch; previously unreleased) | 4:36 | |
3. | "In the Night" | 4:51 | |
4. | "Opportunities" (original 12-inch mix; previously unreleased on CD) | 7:00 | |
5. | "Why Don't We Live Together?" (original New York mix; previously unreleased) | 5:14 | |
6. | "West End Girls" (dance mix; previously unreleased on CD) | 6:39 | |
7. | "A Man Could Get Arrested" (7-inch B-side; previously unreleased on CD) | 4:51 | |
8. | "Love Comes Quickly" (dance mix) |
| 6:50 |
9. | "That's My Impression" (disco mix; previously unreleased) | 5:19 | |
10. | "Was That What It Was?" (previously unreleased) | 5:17 | |
11. | "Suburbia" (The Full Horror) | 8:58 | |
12. | "Jack the Lad" (previously unreleased) | 4:32 | |
13. | "Paninaro" (Italian remix) | 8:38 | |
Total length: | 76:56 |
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Please. [11]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Brazil | — | 75,000 [32] |
Canada (Music Canada) [33] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
Hong Kong (IFPI Hong Kong) [34] | Gold | 10,000* |
New Zealand (RMNZ) [35] | Platinum | 15,000^ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [36] | Platinum | 300,000^ |
United States (RIAA) [37] | Platinum | 1,000,000^ |
Summaries | ||
Worldwide | — | 3,000,000 [38] |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. |
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