2009 has been a productive year for Pet Shop Boys who won the award for Outstanding Contribution To Music at this year’s BRITs and celebrated their highest UK and USA album chart positions for 15 years. A hugely successful world tour is still in progress.

We asked some big names in Australian media to let us know their favourite Pet Shop Boys tracks and why:

• Mark Poston (Chairman, EMI Australasia)
• Bernard Zuel (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Fuzzy (Video Hits)
• Will Larnach-Jones (manager of The Presets / Angie Hart)
• DJ Seymour Butz
• Grant Gillies (Network Ten National Marketing Mgr)
• Marc Andrews (MEDIAWEEK/DNA)
• Antonino Tati (Editor, Cream Magazine)
• Andy Purcell (Publicity Officer, EMI Music Australia)

December 11 see’s the release of a brand new Pet Shop Boys EP titled Christmas. It’s a five track digital EP featuring:

1. It Doesn’t Often Snow At Christmas (new version) – originally an exclusive Christmas single issued to members of the Pet Shop Boys fan club in 1997. Produced by Marius de Vries and Pet Shop Boys, this version is based on the original version and has orchestral and choir arrangements by Matt Robertson and Marius de Vries. 2. My Girl – Pet Shop Boys’ arrangement of the Madness classic, My Girl, was originally performed with Suggs and Carl of Madness at last year’s charity benefit, Can You Bear It?, for the family of Chris and Neil’s former assistant and close friend, Dainton Connell, who was tragically killed in a car accident.

3. All Over The World (new version) – A new version of the track which appears on Pet Shop Boys’ latest album, Yes. 4. Viva La Vida/Domino Dancing – A medley of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida and Pet Shop Boys classic Domino Dancing which the duo has been performing on their current world tour. This studio version is produced by Stuart Price. Check out the official Coldplay website where they’ve posted a live PSB clip. 5. My Girl (our house mix)

Pet Shop Boys Christmas EP by theinsound

Mark Poston – EMI Chairman, Australasia

They create this extraordinary secret world. It’s a perfect marriage of music, lyrics, incredible aesthetic attention to detail from the sleeve design – to the typeface – and to the title of the album and the importance of the accompanying visual language. If you could create the perfect pop group in a laboratory it would be Pet Shop Boys – but that’s not to discount the profound human and emotional aspects of their craft (as any fan would know). They have constantly worked on the cutting edge of the arts with all that they do, and to me they are as quintessentially english as a cup of tea.

Neil Tennant has one of the most distinctive voices in popular music and an incredible command of the English language… it’s as if he’s singing right in your ear. One of my favourite qualities about PSB is the juxtaposition between Neil and Chris in their personae and characters. Perhaps what I admire the most about them – and something that is overlooked perhaps – is that they have a real (and unshakable) creative drive that is almost punk in its attitude… which is to push against the rock clichés of the industry and to make exceptional pop art.

To me they are perfection personified and inspiring as artists in how far you can push the boundaries in pop across genres, design, dj culture, collaborations, sexuality, personality and the pursuit of pleasure. I think most people have no idea how influential and accomplished they are, but I kinda like that too. Their catalogue of work is up there with the best groups of all time and they were one of the reasons I chose to work at EMI and that EMI chose me.

To choose favourites is ridiculous but here’s today’s…

• Album:  Behaviour
• Sleeve design: Introspective
• Gig : The Savoy Theatre, London 1997
• Remix : Young Offender (Jam And Spoon Remix)
• Song Title : We all feel better in the dark

Bernard Zuel – Sydney Morning Herald

My favourite is probably Opportunities – clever, impossible not to dance to, cheesy and witty at the same time and none more ’80s. Only just ahead of their cover of Where The Streets Have No Name.

Fuzzy – Video Hits

There’s too many Pet Shop Boys songs that I love. Can I pick two instead of just one at least? First, Domino Dancing although it never met the expectations of giving the Pet Shop Boys another #1 spot on the charts it’s such a good tune, and an amazing summer tune at that. I love the synths and it has an awesome video to go with – men fighting in the ocean and a sultry Donna Bottman. Mmmm Then there’s the obvious classic, West End Girls, need I say more?

Will Larnach-Jones (Manager of The Presets / Angie Hart)

When I think of Pet Shop Boys I think of possibility.
Possible for a ‘bookish’ magazine editor and a trainee architect to transform into compelling pop stars, and to still be at it today, some twenty five odd years later.
Possible for two English guys to channel Grandmaster Flash and in turn create a US number one about London life.
Possible to embrace the universal subjects of passion, love, sex, money, violence, religion, injustice and death – all within the confines of the three minute radio single.
Possible to create lyrical metaphors so ‘on point’ they could dance on the head of a pin.
Possible for exuberance to be a bedfellow to sorrow, for Che Guvara and Debussy to march to a disco beat.
Possible to create uplifting melancholy.
Possible that a song can make a difference.

DJ Seymour Butz

I can remember djing West End Girls back in 1985 in a small alterna nightclub in Hobart. The dancefloor was captivated by this dark hip hop style magic. Since then The Pet Shop Boys have become an integral, vital and shining thread in the wonder fabric of pop. becoming musical ambassadors of love and hedonism. They have collaborated with gay icons Dusty Springfield, Kylie, Liza Minelli, Rufus Wainwright and even Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. They have re contextualized the Village People and Noel Coward for a new generation, remixed artist as diverse as Yoko Ono and Rammstein and have worked with the most respected producers from Bobby Orlando to Kompakt Records Michael Mayer. Always understanding the visual element of beauty, they have collaborated with genius artists Wolf Gang Tilmans and Dereck Jarman. They are a intrinsic part of both the history and the now of gay pop culture…

Grant Gillies (Network Ten National Marketing Manager)

My favourite song of the Pet Shop Boys is What Have I Done To Deserve This? It was released in the year that I turned 12 and when I was really becoming aware of what music I liked, and featured Dusty Springfield who’s music I was familiar with from my dad’s collection. It salvaged Springfield’s career and was a perfect slice of pop – encapsulating everything I love about the Pet Shop Boys: Irreverence, depth, angst and fun all somehow wrapped up in one.

Just as it was all about timing using Dusty Springfield when everyone had written her off, I loved the song all over again after BRIT Awards performance – when Lady Gaga did female vocals (before she had exploded onto the British charts). From the first distinctive beats this is the one that always makes me smile.

Marc Andrews (MEDIAWEEK/DNA)

Fave Pet Shop Boys song: Liberation

While it’s hard to pick one favourite PSB track over all others, I went with this “middle-period” single not just because the video was the trippiest thing you ever experienced, minus the use of stimulants, but the song’s beautifully uplifting message about why love was worth taking a chance really resonated with me. I had met a beautiful boy on Mykonos for two days while on vacation in 1994 and we listened to this song on the beach (sharing my Walkman’s headphones, no less!) over and over. Two years later “the love freed in me the love I never dared” and I moved to Germany to live with him and we spent 14 great years together. Now Liberation still sounds as gorgeous, pertinent and uplifting as it did back then, lying in his arms on a beach in the sunshine on a Greek island “…all the way back home at midnight…”

Antonino Tati (Editor – Cream Magazine)

Fave Pet Shop Boys song: I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing

It’s a tune that typifies Pet Shop Boys beautifully… from its bibliographic title, through its ambiguous lyrics (that can be read in either innocent or sexual context), right up to its slick video clip. Oh, and the Extended Nude Mix is killer, preferably heard at 6am in the morning on a dancefloor; with boutique beer in hand and the sun’s first rays oozing through cracks in the club windows.

Andy Purcell (Publicity Officer, EMI Music Australia)

• Album: Pop Art: The Hits
• Song: tied – Suburbia and In Denial (featuring Kylie Minogue)
  
• Video: I’m With Stupid
• Sleeve design: Very (the special edition plastic bubble pack)
• Gig: Fundamental Tour Hordern Pavilion, Sydney April 6, 2007