Pet Shop Boys - Pop Art - The Videos [DVD] [2003]

With regard to the CD, the first of the discs of this 'Greatest Hits' for the Pet Shop Boys contains 17 tracks (Pop), and the second 18 tracks (Art). For those who are die-hard fans of the Pet Shop Boys, this is a must have, but, for the most part, those fans will find it is in many ways an already-have. The tracks are remastered, but given the high production qualities of most PSB discs generally, there isn't a great deal to be gained from this. There are two new songs, Miracles and Flamboyant (one on each disc), which are both wonderful (and, interestingly, the addition of two songs to the 'greatest hits' compilation matches their performance with Discography, which also had a 'best of' with two new tracks added). These songs, unfortunately, are not reflected in the video collection on this DVD.

Unlike the CD collection, the DVD is arranged chronologically, beginning the song 'Opportunities' (which had two versions, one released prior to the song 'West End Girls' becoming a worldwide hit), and ending with songs from their latest album, Release. It also includes a few pieces that are extended single versions. Some of these pieces are quite remarkable - directors such as Bruce Weber and Derek Jarman collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys to make very sleek, very stylish videos that stand the test of time well, and still include innovative features that many other videographers have subsequently taken on as standard practices.

There are the major songs and single releases from all previous albums, so this serves both as a retrospective but also as a handy all-in-one collection spanning the history of the Pet Shop Boys; from that perspective, if you were to have just one CD/DVD from them, this would the one. This includes all the number one hits, all the top ten, with an additional collection of tracks from the later album releases that reached the UK top 20. The division between 'Pop' and 'Art' is subtle, and any lifelong fan will have his or her own impressions as to which songs should fit into which category. On the CD, the 'Pop' side is more disco/dance music, whereas the 'Art' side is a little more sombre, and the lyrics a little more complex. On the other hand, some songs, such as 'Love comes quickly' would easily qualify for either designation. There is no such designation here, but for those who have both, it is interesting to see if the videos match with the music in the categorisation.

This collection represents more than 20 years work on the part of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. For the first several years of that career, they were famous world-wide, and quite a staple in the dance clubs and video programming in America and elsewhere. The first singles collection 'Discography' (with the companion video release, 'Videography' at the same time) represented the beginning of the decline of 80s style dance music in America, but the music descended from this type remained strongly popular throughout the rest of the world, as the sold-out concert tours of the Pet Shop Boys everywhere except North America attests to. Many of the songs on this 'Pop-Art' collection will therefore be new to audiences whose interest in the Pet Shop Boys ended the hits from the 'Behaviour' era.

A must-have for anyone who likes dance music, disco, electronic music, 80s music, the Pet Shop Boys, or who wants to have a complete music collection of some of the 'founding fathers' of Music Television.

It's quite entertaining to begin with, but becomes quite dull after a while - there are long pauses where they have literally nothing to say. Chris Heath tries to nudge them along from time to time, but not as much as you'd think, so when you start to get to the end of the Very videos, things becomes almost catatonic - I think this is also partly because in my opinion their recent videos have also been quite dull anyway.

Their commentary also makes you realise how little input they have in the ideas behind them - how many times does Chris Heath say "So whats this video about?" and Neil and Chris will say something like " We don't know/recall" or "It was the directors idea at the time so we haven't a clue". I just feel the commentary would have benefitted from some input from the directors themselves if this is the case.

Additionally, Neil and Chris talk a lot about people they know, who, unless you were that person, or a die hard fan (and I am pretty die hard but still didn't follow some of this) would be completely over your head. It's like listening in on a party conversation talking about people you don't know.

So, to sum up, fantastic DVD but loses a star for me because of the slightly substandard commentary.