I've Been Cited!

Aside from scattered links on other PSB websites (many of which are noted on my own Links page), my website has been cited a number of times by assorted "non-PSB" sites and publications. I note many of them below.

The single citation that I'm most proud of, however, occurred on November 17, 2003, when the Pet Shop Boys themselves mentioned my website during a live webchat sponsored by BBC Radio 2 (an image from which appears at the right). In response to a fan's question, "What do you think of the many unofficial websites devoted to you?" Neil first provides some generalities ("I think it's good. It's amazingly flattering.") and then talks about 10 Years of Being Boring, which he very aptly describes as "fantastic!" Then he says—

Neil: And there's a guy in America who's done one that's called "Pet Shop Boys Song-by-Song Commentary," and he's an author, and he's gone through every single song we've ever done, and talked about it and discussed it, and his conclusions are quite often wrong, but it's an amazingly thorough piece of work, and he updates it all the time—

Chris: And what's that one with all the lists? — What's that one, where he lists everything—the Top Ten—

Neil: That's him!

Chris: Oh, it's the same one?—oh, it's great, that one, and what I like is: "Ten reasons how the Pet Shop Boys wrecked their career in America"—and they're all right—you go through them—yeah, yeah, yeah—

Neil: 100% true!

I'm extremely honored and, frankly, thrilled that Neil and Chris have visited my site, have read much of what I've written, and seem to feel so positively about it, my "wrong conclusions" and all. And, in case you're interested, elsewhere I do provide my comments on Neil's assertion that my "conclusions are quite often wrong."

Meanwhile, here are some other scattered citations that I'm aware of:

  • A French correspondent, Stéphane, alerted me to the fact that Vincent Laufer's 2003 French-language book Pet Shop Boys de A à Z ("Pet Shop Boys from A to Z") mentions my website as among some online "curiosities", writing as follows: "…Pet Shop Boys Commentary (www.geowayne.com/psbhtml.htm) dont le concepteur commente tous les morceaux écrits ou interprétés par les Pet Shop Boys" ("…whose originator comments on all of the works written or interpreted by the Pet Shop Boys"). (Thanks, Stéphane!)

  • Fellow PSB Community Forum member Roy informed me—much to my surprise—that an article focusing on my website had appeared on May 26, 2003 in a Thai newspaper called The Nation. (Thanks, Roy!) An online copy of this article is apparently no longer available, but its author, Xavier Galland, quoted a good deal of my homepage and then concluded, "If you like the PSB don’t miss this site."

  • Several correspondents (though Leon was the first—thanks!) alerted me to the fact that Issue 69 (July 2002) of the U.K. publication City Lights appears to make an oblique reference to my website in the lengthy opening sentence of an article by Ewa Kowalski about the Pet Shop Boys titled "Lowe and Behold":

Variously hailed as "danceable synth-pop meisters," "satirical melodits," and "intellectual post-modern camp ironists," the Pet Shop Boys have provoked increasingly entertaining definitions from the pop press as well as achieving international chart success, attracting a following of devoted Pet-Heads world-wide, and inspiring web sites by Ph.D'd-up fans musingly analysing their lyrics [my emphasis].

Gosh—despite my degree, I've never thought of myself as "Ph.D'd-up" before. But, as far as I know, this is the first mention of my site in "real print" (as opposed to "e-print"), so I really appreciate the apparent reference.

  • The Euroflash - For the Love of Music site, dedicated to "Euro disco" (and "Italo disco" in particular) has honored me greatly by describing my site as follows: "Outstanding web site created by Wayne Studer. Arguably, one of the most intelligent and informative sites about a pop group, ever." Not being accustomed to such high praise, I'm blushing as I type this.

  • The November 2003 edition of J.D. Doyle's marvelous Queer Music Heritage referred in a very complimentary fashion both to my book Rock on the Wild Side and to this website.

  • The June 26, 2002 entry in the archives of Angry Robot Music Reviews + Commentary makes complimentary mention of my website. Cool!

  • Alejandra Velera de Barrett's diverse and charming blog injust-spring mentions and quotes from my site during the week of May 27, 2002. She even called it "brilliant"! The check's in the mail, Alejandra.

  • John Robinson's Sore Eyes (as in "a site for…" — oh, how I love puns like that!) cited my site on April 12, 2002.

  • The April 10, 2002 entry of David Gaston's blog I Love Everything also mentions and quotes from my site. (Neat site design, David.)

  • Way back on May 10, 2001, the online music magazine VitaminiC praised my website. But the page containing the citation seems to have been taken down now, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

  • Lilly Tao's entertaining girlhacker.com blog mentioned my site on April 9, 2001. She doesn't have much to say about it one way or the other—but, then again, if she didn't like it, she probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all.

  • Karin L. Kross's site hanging-fire.net favorably mentions my site in passing during her intriguing June 26, 2002 discussion of what several Pet Shop Boys songs mean to her personally.

  • Andrew J. Cosgriff's blog The Monkey Puzzle mentioned me and my site the very next day, June 27, 2002, in reference to "Tonight Is Forever." ("Monkey Puzzle" is the popular name for a species of tree—Araucaria araucana, also known as the Chilean pine, native to Chile but planted widely around the world as an ornamental—with branches that twist and overlap so intricately that it would "puzzle a monkey" to make his way through them. It also has rather sharp, spiny leaves. A metaphor for life, no doubt.)

  • I'm amazed at the tendency of blogs to form "spontaneous webchains," if I may coin a phrase. On December 16, 2004, the Yale Free Press blog provided a user-submitted link to my website. The next day, December 17, Eve Tushnet's blog referred to that link and added that my site was "Neat!" Again, a day later (December 18), a blog titled Dappled Things (the title comes from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem), run by young Roman Catholic priest in northern Virginia, had a reference to Eve's link to my site, described it as "this awesome site that has commentary on the opera omnia of the Pet Shop Boys," and noted my observation that Neil is, after all, a "lapsed Catholic." I love it! Besides, I'm impressed as all get-out by anyone who can so blithely toss around arcane terms like "opera omnia"—which, incidentally, means "all works" in Latin.

  • An Iranian journalist and multimedia designer named Hossein Derakhshan has a blog apparently titled Editor: Myself. I say "apparently" because I have to go on somebody else's word on this since I can't read one iota of Farsi (aka Persian), the language in which the title and much of the site overall is written. At any rate, he offered a link to my website on January 5, 2002, still available via his archives.

  • Peter Torr's blog, originally titled "Office Development, Security, and Randomness" but now renamed HD DVD/Randomness, glowingly mentioned and linked to my site on November 7, 2004. You know, I've grown quite fond of this whole blog thing….

  • They got the title wrong, but it's the thought that counts: cool pop-culture obsessive Freaky Trigger cited my site quite favorably on September 10, 2003.

  • A "fanblog" devoted to U2, U2log.com, mentioned and quoted from my site (regarding—what else?—"Where the Streets Have No Name") on January 31, 2004. (Perhaps surprisingly, the author doesn't seem to mind at all the Boys' somewhat satirical approach. By contrast, a personal friend of mine who happens to be a major U2 fan still hasn't forgiven them.

  • "Sweeping The Nation: Treating music as seriously as it deserves to be treated, i.e. barely at all" on June 4, 2007 describes my site as "the daddy of them all"—"all" being fansites devoted to discussing the music of a particular artist. I'm flattered, especially since I've always felt I'd have made a great daddy.

  • Stephen Gregson's Ph.D. thesis, titled Narrative, spectacle, performance: a dramaturgical investigation into the relationship between an aesthetic event and the social world in rock and pop culture, is available for your rather lengthy reading pleasure online. I mention this fact because it cites my website on pages 90-91. (If you click on the link, you may need to be patient; it's a big honkin' thing, so unless you have a very high-speed Internet connection, it takes some time to open.)

  • Other blogs that have referred to my site include:

    • Incidentally, don't you just love the wonderfully imaginative names that people give their blogs? They make my website title "Commentary" sound so boring. Maybe I should change it to something like—say—Opera Omnia.

  • I'm quoted in reference to "I'm Not Scared" on the Grapefruit Online site.

  • The October 2002 issue of the e-zine Anvil cites me in reference to "Miserablism."

  • A "Web Bizaar [sic] Archive" page (describing itself as "Our collection of weird links")—part of the website for the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) 2004—links to my site without any further commentary, along with dozens of others, including "Jesus Was Gother Than You" and "Max the Maggot." (Warning: Many of the links are broken.) I really don't mind so much my site being referred to as a "weird link" (it's not the first time), although I would think that if anyone were going to describe other people's websites as "weird" they would at least go to the trouble of looking up the correct spelling of the word "bizarre" or "bazaar." Or perhaps I should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were trying to come up with a clever coinage—a "bizarre bazaar," so to speak. I find it fascinating, however, the way people so casually regard other people's interests as "weird." I don't imagine they would regard a Bruce Springsteen website as "weird." You won't get me to say in public whether I would.

  • Finally, I'm especially pleased and proud of the fact that Yahoo! cited my site as one of their "Picks of the Week" (April 9, 2001) and "Picks of the Year 2001" (though I can no longer find a link to those, doggone it).

Copyright © 2001-2008 by Wayne Studer. All Rights Reserved. All lyrics and images copyright © their respective dates by their respective owners.