There have been 4 Pet Shop Boys number singles ‘West End Girls’, ‘It’s A Sin’, ‘Always On MY Mind’ and ‘Heart’.
Of their 15 UK top ten albums their latest Electric in July 2103 reached number 3
Do you read Neil’s lyrics before he records them?
Chris: If I’ve been presented with lyrics to put a melody to I’ll obviously study them, but no. First time I’ll often hear them is when Neil goes to the microphone and sings them.
Neil: Any songwriter has got to be really conscious where they place melody. Madonna, who in my opinion writes quite a lot of banal lyrics, but she’s a mistress of banal lyrics because she gets sound. She knows how important the vowel sounds are in the song and drops them in the right place.
Chris: “Like ring, ring, ring [“Hung Up”]: she makes that sound great, doesn’t she?
Neil: Think of (sings): “Every little thing that you say or do I’m hung up waiting for you-oo.” Every key bit is a vowel sound. I couldn’t sing that. I’d be saying, grammatically it’s all over the place! But as an ecstatic disco song she’s delivered the vowel sounds, hitting the key notes of the melody. It’s a kind of chant as well. (Sings) “Get into the groove.” It’s vowel sounds all the way through: ee, oo, oo, ee-ee. She totally gets that. I assume it’s instinctive and probably she’s a dancer. Madonna is someone for whom melody comes from choreography, which is a very interesting way of thinking.
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