My Favorite Artists
Other Than the Pet Shop Boys

Of course, I listen to a lot of music other than the Pet Shop Boys. Excepting them, here's my list of favorites, in alphabetical order, with brief explanations of why I like each as well as my favorite album* and songs. I also note any interesting "PSB connections" that I'm aware of with each artist.

*I generally disqualify "greatest hits" or "best of" albums from consideration as my favorites because I think they have an "unfair advantage," so to speak. But in a few cases I cite artists who, in my opinion, really didn't create any first-rate albums aside from such collections, so I go ahead cite a hits collection as my favorite.

Incidentally, just because I don't list an artist here doesn't mean that I don't like them. I sometimes get emails from site visitors who, after viewing this page, ask me, "How come you don't like…?" (New Order and the Smiths are frequent objects of this question.) The fact is that I do "like" many artists not listed here. It's just that they're not among my "favorites"—those whom I like especially. But I have to limit the number that I list here; otherwise the designation "favorite" would be meaningless.

The purest pop of the seventies, although they did some of their finest work in the early eighties. Benny and Björn wrote better songs in their second language than most songsmiths can compose in their native tongues. And as a group they reportedly turned down an offer of a billion dollars—that's a thousand-million to our British friends—for a one-off reunion tour back in the 1990s. Now, how cool is that?

Favorite album: Super Trouper (1980)

Favorite songs:

• "Lay All Your Love on Me" (1980)
• "One of Us" (1982)
• "Under Attack" (1982)

Recommended DVD: The Definitive Collection (2002)

PSB connections: Although he and Chris are professed admirers of Abba's music, Neil once said of Erasure's Abba-esque EP, "We would never have done that."

Despite the fact that he very nearly destroyed himself and never completely fulfilled his promise, who but Brian Wilson has left such a remarkable legacy—so much fantastic music—without having fulfilled his promise? His influence as a songwriter and producer is all over the place in music of the last forty years. And if there were any educated doubts of his genius, Brian's 2004 re-creation of his legendary aborted Smile album offers definitive proof. Oh, yeah, he and his brothers, cousin, and friends could really sing, too. In fact, when in "Add Some Music to Your Day" they harmonize "Music is in my soul!" you can damn well believe them.

Favorite album (BB): Sunflower* (1970)
Favorite album (BW): Smile (2004)

Favorite songs:

• "God Only Knows" (1966)
• "Heroes and Villains" (1967)
• "This Whole World" (1970)

Recommended DVD (BB): Endless Harmony (2000)
Recommended DVD (BW): Smile (2004)

PSB connections: They're both "Boys" bands, after all, and Neil has cited the BB classic Pet Sounds as one of his favorite albums. (Hmmm… Pet Sounds—Pet Shop Boys.) Both groups also repurposed music they had originally intended for a James Bond film. In the case of the Beach Boys, it was the title track from Pet Sounds, an instrumental initially titled "Run, James, Run," whereas for the Pet Shop Boys it was an early version of the basic instrumental track of "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave." Now a solo artist, Brian Wilson has recorded for Sanctuary Records and more recently for Rhino Records, both of which have served as U.S. labels for the Pet Shop Boys as well.

*I fully and readily acknowledge that Pet Sounds (1966) is a far better album—in fact, one of the greatest rock/pop albums of all time. And I enjoy it immensely. But, for some reason, I enjoy Sunflower even more. Maybe it's because I feel that Pet Sounds is almost like a Brian Wilson solo album with Beach Boys vocals, whereas Sunflower is indisputably a Beach Boys album, with nearly equal contributions from every member. And it's also where the Beach Boys wrote the book on the art of background vocals.

If for no other reason (but there are many), Lennon-McCartney were the greatest songwriting team in rock music history, and among the three or four greatest of pop music history overall. What's more, during their "middle period" (1966-67), they reshaped the musical landscape—redefined the very language of popular music—in a way that few artists before and none since have matched.

Favorite album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Favorite songs:

• "Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967)
• "Penny Lane" (1967)
• "A Day in the Life" (1967)

Recommended DVD: Anthology (1995)

PSB connections: There's no shortage of them: The Beatles (aka "the White Album") was the first album Neil ever bought; he taught himself to play guitar studying Beatles songbooks; Neil worked with Paul McCartney on the Twentieth-Century Blues project; he has credited John Lennon ("Strawberry Fields Forever," in particular) as a major influence on his style as a lyricist; the Boys remixed "Walking on Thin Ice" for Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono (and performed it live on stage with her in June 2005); the song "I Made My Excuses and Left" was partly inspired by the story of Cynthia Lennon discovering that her husband John was in love with Yoko; Neil and Chris had once seriously considered performing a cover version of the Beatles' "The Fool on the Hill" but, after rehearsals, decided against it; the Beatles' "She Loves You" was selected by Neil as one of his Desert Island Discs when he appeared on that famous BBC radio show in February 2007; Chris has noted that the Boys' 2002 "University Tour" was inspired by the fact that the first Paul McCartney and Wings tour was of U.K. universities; and several PSB tracks include overt references to Beatles songs.

Talk about great songwriters! How deep was their well of inspiration? And while I'm no huge fan of Barry's singing (he's a little too "breathy" for my taste, and I think he overuses his falsetto), Robin is perhaps the most underrated vocalist in rock/pop music history. I'm also impressed by the way that they were repeatedly able to re-emerge, phoenix-like, from setbacks and changes in fashion that would have hurled lesser talents into permanent "Whatever became of…?" status. Understandably, however, it appears that Maurice's untimely death in 2003 has forced the "Bee Gees" moniker forever into retirement.

Favorite album: Main Course (1975)

Favorite songs:

• "Nights on Broadway" (1975)
• "Fanny (Be Tender with My Love)" (1975)
• "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1993)

Recommended DVD: One Night Only (1997)

PSB connections: Chris has said that the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album, dominated by the Bee Gees, was a major influence on him, inspiring his love of dance music. Blue Weaver, a keyboardist who spent much of the seventies working with the Bee Gees, also worked with the Boys on their first album, Please. And the PSB song "Nightlife" is generally recognized as something of an homage to the Brothers Gibb. But influences can go both ways: the Bees Gees publicly acknowledged that their 1993 track "Fallen Angel" was heavily influenced by PSB. Neil also affirmed that his own longstanding fondness for the Bee Gees ("I've always loved the Bee Gees' music…. they've always been songwriters that we really admired") had inspired him in his graphic-arts contribution to the 1997 WarChild charity exhibition at London's Saatchi Gallery: he designed a "Flashing Light-Box Model of Dance Floor from Saturday Night Fever."

Personally, I'm not very fond of his early "glam phase," though I'll admit that it was revolutionary and produced some true classics. But it's "middle-period" Bowie that I enjoy the most—his recordings from Young Americans through Scary Monsters, especially the brilliant Station to Station.

Favorite album: Station to Station (1976)

Favorite songs:

• "TVC15" (1976)
• "'Heroes'" (1977)
• "Ashes to Ashes" (1980)

Recommended DVD: Best of Bowie (2002)

PSB connections: Longtime avowed Bowie fans (in February 2007 Neil chose Bowie's "Changes" as one of his Desert Island Discs), the Boys remixed and performed on the single version (and appear in the video) of his song "Hallo Spaceboy." Turnabout is fair play, so the Boys asked Bowie to remix "I Get Along," but he declined on account of his hectic schedule at the time. The Thin White Duke also served as the inspiration for the PSB song "Friendly Fire." A lengthy interview with Neil specifically on the subject of Bowie's music and career—including his influence on the Pet Shop Boys—appears in the January 2007 issue of Record Collector. Neil notes, "David Bowie transformed the way I felt about music," and reveals that whenever he and Chris perform their song "Sexy Northerner" live he as to restrain himself from impersonating Bowie vocally. David was involved in the same Threepenny Opera anniversary project that led to Neil and Chris recording "What Keeps Mankind Alive?" And Neil invited Bowie to take part in his Twentieth-Century Blues Noël Coward tribute project, but David declined.

If I had to declare anyone to be the most original talent on this list, it would have to be Kate Bush. Hounds of Love is quite possibly the best art-rock album ever made. And though it's from a somewhat weaker album, "The Sensual World" never fails to send shivers up and down my spine. Besides, any woman who has the audacity to write a song about her desire to know what a male orgasm feels like ("Running Up That Hill") and to sing a duet with a bird—based on the bird's song, not hers ("Aerial Tal")—is pretty darn impressive in my book.

Favorite album: Hounds of Love (1985)

Favorite songs:

• "Running Up That Hill" (1985)
• "Cloudbusting" (1985)
• "The Sensual World" (1989)

Recommended DVD: None—I'm still waiting for a DVD video collection! (OK, I know there are bootlegs, but I'm not counting them here.)

PSB connections: Neil met Kate at the Grosvenor House hotel at the 1987 BPI Awards. "She wasn't particularly friendly, I'm afraid," says Neil, "but she wasn't unfriendly. Shy, I think." Both Boys ran into her again at an EMI conference in 1993. Kate is one of several artists in this list who share with the Pet Shop Boys their active support for the UK charity War Child, which is devoted to helping the victims of war. Also, both Kate and the Pet Shop Boys have employed the services of the Balanescu String Quartet: the Boys on "My October Symphony" and Kate the preceding year on "Reaching Out" from her album The Sensual World. And in May 2007 DJ Magnet did an ingenious mashup of PSB's "Love Comes Quickly" with Placebo's cover of "Running Up That Hill" (in the process incorporating a snippet of Kate's original) titled "Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly."

Between Karen's exquisite voice and Richard's equally exquisite arrangements (and, in some cases, his excellent songwriting), they were able to transform some of the most doleful songs ever written into timeless pop classics. With their masterpiece, "Goodbye to Love," they virtually invented the power ballad. Please don't hold that against them. Unfairly and sometimes cruelly maligned by the rock mainstream in their own time, it wasn't until after Karen's premature death that it was generally acknowledged what an absolute gem we had in her.

Favorite album: A Song for You (1972)

Favorite songs:

• "Goodbye to Love" (1972)
• "Only Yesterday" (1975)
• "I Need to Be in Love" (1976)

Recommended DVD: Close to You – Remembering the Carpenters (1997)

PSB connections: In the same year, 1987, the Pet Shop Boys and Richard Carpenter both released collaborations with Dusty Springfield—the Boys, of course, on "What Have I Done to Deserve This?," and Richard on the song "Something in Your Eyes" from his solo album Time.

No one has made utter despair sound so appealing. And even when they're not despairing, as in the magnificent "Enjoy the Silence," they sound as though they are, which is tougher than you might think. I don't much like watching them perform—something about Dave Gahan's stage presence rubs me the wrong way—but I do love listening to them.

Favorite album: Violator (1990)

Favorite songs:

• "Never Let Me Down Again" (1987)
• "Enjoy the Silence" (1990)
• "World in My Eyes" (1990)

Recommended DVD: Videos 86>98+ (2002)

PSB connections: In the November 8, 1984 issue of Smash Hits, journalist Neil Tennant reviewed the DM single "Blasphemous Rumours," describing it as "a routine slab of gloom in which God is given a severe ticking off." Years later, after having himself become a famous musician, Neil noted that "Enjoy the Silence" was an influence on PSB during the recording of Behaviour, particularly on the song "The End of the World." But, as with the Bee Gees, influences go both ways—and in this case in the same song. Reportedly it was the Pet Shop Boys' influence that inspired DM to give "Enjoy the Silence" a strong dance beat. (It seems they originally considered it more of a ballad.) It's also worth noting that Neil and Chris, performing with Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr as Electronic, served as the Mode's opening act for a pair of concert dates in Los Angeles in August 1990.

Neil Hannon—who is The Divine Comedy—has established a place for himself in the post-1990 pop music world as perhaps its single foremost practicioner of the art song. His work is breathtakingly imaginative, and while this native of Northern Ireland sometimes flirts daringly with the rococo and the twee, the fact that he nearly always manages to avoid such pitfalls renders his heavily orchestrated achievements all the more impressive. As he walks his musical tightrope between the comic and the tragic, he has become an Irish/U.K. national treasure. Thank goodness the rest of the world can enjoy the treasure as well.

Favorite album: Victory for the Comic Muse (2006)

Favorite songs:

• "The Frog Princess" (1996)
• "Our Mutual Friend" (2004)
• "A Lady of a Certain Age" (2006)

Recommended DVD: So far the only full-length DVD is Live at the London Palladium (2004), available from the U.K. in PAL format. I haven't seen it yet, but hope to soon.

PSB connections: The two Neils—Hannon and Tennant—sang backup together on Robbie Williams's "No Regrets." Hannon also contributed "I've Been to a Marvelous Party" to Tennant's Twentieth-Century Blues Noël Coward tribute project. And The Divine Comedy (Hannon plus support musicians) performed "West End Girls" during their 2002 tour.

As a former nerd—at least I hope it's "former"—I have to admire anyone who made über-geekiness look and sound so cool. Yes, even more than Devo. No, not as much as Elvis Costello, but, then again, I personally don't much care for most of Costello's music. Besides, anyone who can pull off the techno-Cajun hybrid of "I Love You, Goodbye" has my undying respect.

Favorite album: Astronauts and Heretics (1992)

Favorite songs:

• "She Blinded Me with Science" (1983)
• "Hyperactive" (1984)
• "I Love You, Goodbye" (1992)

Recommended DVD: His first (as far as I know) has recently been released, The Sole Inhabitant (2007), but I have yet to see it myself.

PSB connections: An "eighties star" who continued to make terrific music into the nineties but was by that time essentially ignored by U.S. radio, where he now can't buy airplay time except for the occasional "oldie"—almost invariably his first and biggest hit ("She Blinded Me with Science"). Sound familiar?

Because Andy Bell is so "out" (not to mention a great singer) and because Vince Clarke is the most inventive synth player ever. He's certainly not the instrument's greatest virtuoso—you'd have to look along the lines of Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, or even Wendy Carlos for that—but no other synthesist is as imaginative and emotionally evocative.

Favorite album: I Say I Say I Say (1994)

Favorite songs:

• "A Little Respect" (1988)
• "Blue Savannah" (1989)
• "In My Arms" (1997)

Recommended DVD: Hits! The Videos (2003)

PSB connections: They're contemporaneous synthpop-songwriting duos with openly gay lead singers. There's also a widespread perception of an intense rivalry between the two groups, but this seems largely a product of fandom's collective imagination—or, at most, a holdover, no longer applicable, from their earliest days. Clarke has described himself as a PSB fan and has referred to Chris and Neil as "great composers," while Andy has said, "I've always been a fan of PSB's music and would love to sing on one of their disco tracks." On a more concrete level, Stephen Hague, who has often worked with the Boys and produced Very, also produced Erasure's album The Innocents. In fact, Erasure and PSB have shared numerous other producers, engineers, and remixers, among them David Jacob, Phil Harding, Mark Stent, Shep Pettibone, and Bob Kraushaar.

With this much songwriting, vocal, and production talent, plus more inner turmoil than Mount Etna, this band might be described as a Beach Boys for the seventies—only the Beach Boys were still around then, if past their prime. Lindsay worshiped at the altar of Brian, and small wonder Christine hooked up with Dennis for a while: they were naturals. Meanwhile, Stevie's witch fixation, once somewhat annoying, has grown quainter with time. I mean, you gotta love such charming oddballism.

Favorite album: Tusk (1979)

Favorite songs:

• "Go Your Own Way" (1977)
• "Silver Springs" (1977)
• "Sara" (1979)

Recommended DVD: The Dance (1997)

PSB connections: Chris has said that when they recorded "Home and Dry," they initially thought that "it sounded a bit too much like Fleetwood Mac or something," but they decided to stick with it because it was like nothing they had ever done before. And in a November 2006 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Neil said that he would like to work with Stevie Nicks: "I recently heard her song 'Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You?' and her husky vocals really impressed me. So if you're reading this, Stevie, give us a call."

I debated with myself for a long time about adding the former lead singer of Genesis to my list. I must confess that I actually like only about half of his solo work. But I also have to confess that the songs I like, I really like! When he hits it, he hits it dead on, creating some of the greatest art-rock tracks ever recorded. He's endlessly fascinating, extremely influential, a remarkable showman, and the possessor of a delightfully disturbing sense of humor—OK, he makes the cut.

Favorite album: So (1986)

Favorite songs:

• "Solsbury Hill" (1977)
• "Shock the Monkey" (1982)
• "Red Rain" (1986)

Recommended DVD: Secret World Live (1994)

PSB connections: Both Peter and the Boys were recipients of 1987 BRITS Awards: Gabriel as Best Male Solo Artist and PSB as performers of the Single of the Year, "West End Girls."

Speak of the devil. Great music, great lyrics, great instrumental prowess—in short, they're great. Unlike many, I like both the "Gabriel era" and the "Collins era" primarily because the chief common denominator, at least as far as I'm concerned, is Tony Banks, the finest songwriter and the most tasteful keyboardist of prog rock.

Favorite album: A Trick of the Tail (1976)

Favorite songs:

• "Firth of Fifth" (1973)
• "Squonk" (1976)
• "Heathaze" (1980)

Recommended DVD: The Way We Walk - Live in Concert (1992)

PSB connections: The two bands have connections—albeit very different ones—with British songwriter/producer Jonathan King, who discovered, named, and gave Genesis their professional start back in the late 1960s; two decades later the Pet Shop Boys would successfully sue King for his allegations that they had cribbed "It's a Sin" from Cat Stevens's "Wild World." Neil also conducted an interview with the members of Genesis during his stint with Smash Hits. Finally, both bands boast a "domino" song: of course, the Boys' "Domino Dancing," and Genesis's "Domino"—a deeply moving epic that describes a nuclear holocaust in terms of one of the millions (if not billions) of small, personal tragedies it would entail.

A grossly underrated guy—a terrific songwriter. Some of his least-known songs (such as "The Other Me") are among his best, and while nearly all of his albums are excellent, his ambitious song cycle Blaze of Glory particularly stands out. It's a crime that this remarkable album is out of print, at least in the United States.

Favorite album: Blaze of Glory (1989)

Favorite songs:

• "Breaking Us in Two" (1982)
• "Real Men" (1982)
• "The Other Me" (1991)

Recommended DVD: Live in Tokyo (1989)

PSB connections: The Seven Deadly Sins (Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Anger, Envy, and Pride) have been a mutual concern. The Boys featured them (via fleeting personifications) in their video for "It's a Sin," while Jackson made them the focus of his 1997 album Heaven and Hell, with a separate song devoted to each of the seven. Jackson also makes passing reference to PSB in his autobiography A Cure for Gravity: "Up close, there might appear to be a million worlds of difference between, say, Aerosmith and the Pet Shop Boys. Zoom out, and they're both pop groups. Zoom out further, and it's all just music." (Not exactly a profound observation, Joe, but I still love ya.)

Are you now beginning to grasp how important songwriting skills are to me? Despite the occasional lapse in taste, Long Island's finest is a great songwriter (with a penchant for unexpected harmonic progressions that rivals Brian Wilson) as well as a damn good singer. He's also something of a musical chameleon, readily able to mimic the songwriting and vocal mannerisms of other artists. Take, for instance, "Uptown Girl," an uncanny channeling of the sound and spirit some other favorites of mine, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (see below).

Favorite album: The Nylon Curtain (1982)

Favorite songs:

• "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" (1976)
• "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" (1977)
• "All About Soul" (1993)

Recommended DVD: The Essential Video Collection (2001)

PSB connections: Like the Pet Shop Boys, Billy wrote and recorded a song titled "Shameless." (Of course, the hyperlink takes you to info about the PSB song, not Billy's. Billy's "Shameless" subsequently became a major country hit for Garth Brooks.) Also, Billy was born in the Bronx—some sources report his birthplace as the nearby NYC suburb of Hicksville, but he says it was the Bronx, and I'll go with what he says—so that makes him an authentic "New York City Boy."

OK, so his work since around 1990 has largely been schmaltz. But it's been really good schmaltz. And back in the seventies, when he was in his prime, Elton was a nonstop hit machine—not to mention a composer of terrific songs—who made rock fun again. Though the unlikeliest of pop stars, he fully deserves to be precisely what he is: the third most successful artist in rock history (at least based on hit singles in the U.S.), behind only Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

Favorite album: Honky Château (1972)

Favorite songs:

• "Where to Now, St. Peter?" (1971)
• "Philadelphia Freedom" (1975)
• "I Feel Like a Bullet in the Gun of Robert Ford" (1975)

Recommended DVD: Elton 60 - Live at Madison Square Garden (2007)

PSB connections: Elton and the Boys are personal friends with numerous linkages, including:

• They performed "Believe/Song for Guy" together on the 1997 U.K. TV special An Audience with Elton John.
• Elton participated in Neil's Twentieth-Century Blues project.
• Elton introduced PSB as his "favorite English band" on the episode of TFI Friday where they performed "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas."
• That same song was included on Elton's 2005 holiday compilation Elton John's Christmas Party. In the CD's liner notes, Elton writes of Neil and Chris, "Not only are they two of my best friends, but they constantly write some of the best albums to come out of the United Kingdom and I love them dearly."
• Neil attended Elton's 50th-birthday costume party in 1997, resplendently uniformed as a dragoon.
• The Boys performed at the big "pre-nuptial" bash for Elton and his partner David Furnish in late 2005.
• Elton, when presenting PSB with the 2000 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, stated that their song "A Red Letter Day" had inspired him to continue making music at a time when he had felt like giving up on it.
• They remade "In Private" (originally written and produced by PSB for Dusty Springfield) as a duet between PSB and Elton.
• Neil interviewed Elton in a 1998 issue of Interview magazine.
• Neil unsuccessfully auditioned for Elton's Rocket Records label way back in the early 1970s, years before there even were "Pet Shop Boys."

Quirky, jazzy, wildly inventive music from a woman who gives every impression of having lived the lowdown she writes and sings about. I think her first four albums—Rickie Lee Jones, Pirates, Girl at Her Volcano (actually an EP), and The Magazine—are her best. She seems, however, to have at least partially burned out after that. The enduring curse of the "Best New Artist" Grammy, I suppose. But, oh, what wonderful albums those first ones are!

Favorite album: Rickie Lee Jones (1979)

Favorite songs:

• "Last Chance Texaco" (1979)
• "Living It Up" (1981)
• "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" (1981)

Recommended DVD: Live at the Wiltern Theatre (1992) is about all that's out there.

PSB connections: Jon Pollak, who was the lighting designer for the Boys' Somewhere shows at the Savoy Theatre in 1997, also designed the lighting for a Rickie Lee Jones tour in the late 1980s. (Hey, it's the only thing I could come up with!)

What can you say about her that hasn't already been said? The woman's as smart as they come: she knows her strengths and, even more importantly, she knows her weaknesses and how to work around them. If it's amazing that Elton is the third most successful artist in rock history, it's even more remarkable that she's #4. But just get a load of the singles catalog on that girl! And anyone who doubts her artistic chops should, if nothing else, remember "Live to Tell," one of the most poignant, emotionally devastating ballads of the 1980s.

Favorite album: Ray of Light (1998)

Favorite songs:

• "Vogue" (1990)
• "Deeper and Deeper" (1992)
• "Get Together" (2005)

Recommended DVD: The Confessions Tour - Live from London (2007)

PSB connections: There are many. Madonna was among the artists interviewed by Neil back in his days with Smash Hits. In 1986, after the Boys hit it big, they attended her birthday party at London's Groucho Club, where she asked them to be the opening act on her next tour; they politely declined. Still later, Neil and Chris considered offering their song "Heart" to Maddie but, by their own admission, they chickened out. They also allude to her in "DJ Culture" (she's the "she" in "she after Sean") and mention her by name in their unreleased track "Tall Thin Men." Interestingly, although Neil has confirmed that he is indeed a Madonna fan, he once said that the only album of hers that he actually likes is her first. Then again, in the December 1992 issue of the PSB Fan Club publication Literally, he stated that he was enjoying her album Erotica at the time. More recently, Stuart Price, the producer of Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor, noted that at one point while they were working on the song "Jump"—which is built around the classic "West End Girls" chord progression—she cried out, "Pet Shop Boys! I fucking love them!" Of course, our heroes did a remix of "Sorry," the second single from that very album. And when Neil presented Madonna with a BRITS Award in February 2006, she thanked various British artists, including the Pet Shop Boys, for their influence on her music. Neil and Madonna even did a radio interview together before the awards show. Most recently, Chris and Neil collaborated with Robbie Williams on the song "She's Madonna" for Robbie's album Rudebox.

Snicker if you want, but we're all allowed at least one guilty pleasure. Not only were they at their peak the tightest harmony vocal ensemble in the biz, but they could swing their asses off when they wanted to. And while they're all excellent singers, top chops go to the incredible Janis Siegel, a virtuoso in both the pop and jazz idioms—and there's only a handful of vocalists you can truthfully say that about.

Favorite album: Extensions (1979)

Favorite songs:

• "Birdland" (1979)
• "Until I Met You (Corner Pocket)" (1981)
• "Sassy" (1991)

Recommended DVD: Vocalese Live (1986)

PSB connections: The Manhattan Transfer's biggest U.S. hit was their 1981 remake of the doo-wop classic "The Boy from New York City." And, of course, we all know about the Pet Shop Boys' "New York City Boy."

He's an acquired taste, but I've definitely acquired it. The terms "alternative" and "indie" were made for artists like Stephin Merritt, whose hangdog baritone, stark arrangements, and deceptively simple musical structures can make for a challenging aural experience. But once you tap into his aesthetic, you're rewarded with some of the greatest songs of modern pop. A master of mixed emotions, he's by turns forlornly romantic, charmingly lewd, poignantly seductive, jadedly frustrated, and comically caustic. Recording both solo and with collaborators under a bewildering array of identities—the Magnetic Fields, Future Bible Heroes, the Sixths, and the Gothic Archies, not to mention his own name—it all boils down to a highly accomplished songwriter carving a unique niche for himself in contemporary music.

Favorite album: 69 Love Songs (1999)

Favorite songs:

• "Busby Berkeley Dreams" (1999)
• "Papa Was a Rodeo" (1999)
• "The Night You Can't Remember" (1999)

Recommended DVD: None that I'm aware of.

PSB connections: In a 1998 interview, Gail O'Hara (cofounder of Chickfactor magazine) asked Merritt, "Who is the best lyricist in an electropop group?" He cited three: "Me. Neil Tennant. Gary Numan's lyrics are underrated." Also, Merritt's most prolific band, the Magnetic Fields, was slated to take part in the Pet Shop Boys' ill-fated 2001 touring "gay music" summer festival "Wotapalava." On a somewhat more esoteric note, both Stephin and the Boys have shown a recurring concern with vampires—metaphorical if not literal. Merritt's songs "I Have the Moon," "Crowd of Drifters," and (obviously) "I Am a Vampire," among others, are about the undead, while a Future Bible Heroes album title, Eternal Youth, refers to that particular vampiric trait. As for PSB, there's of course "Vampires" and the "Heart" video starring Ian McKellan as a bloodsucker clearly based on Count Dracula—although, curiously, Neil professed that he's "not remotely interested in Dracula" during a 2007 visit to Romania.

Are there any artists whom you really don't want to like, but you do? I have several, but George Michael is the biggest and best of the bunch—the one I like the most, despite myself. It's difficult to say why I don't want to like him. Maybe I just can't get those horrible "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "I Want Your Sex" videos out of my head. Or perhaps because the title "I Want Your Sex" itself sounds like a line from a bad paperback sexploitation potboiler of the 1950s. Or maybe even because, in my opinion, Wham's "Last Christmas" just might be the worst Christmas song ever. But I know precisely why I do like him: he's a truly great singer and, while I'm not sure I can actually call him a great songwriter, he does have flashes of undeniable brilliance.

Favorite album: Faith (1987)

Favorite songs:

• "Freedom" (aka "Freedom '90") (1990)
• "You Have Been Loved" (1996)
• "Amazing" (2004)

Recommended DVD: Twenty Five (2006)

PSB connections: Social acquaintances (who once enjoyed, as Neil put it, a "riotous" time together on an airplane), George Michael visited the Boys in the studio while they were recording Bilingual, and he was especially intrigued by the song "It Always Comes as a Surprise." It's likely that it proved an influence on him during his recording around the same time of his album Older, which included a number of tracks with a similarly "bossa nova-ish" feel. George has listed PSB among his own favorite artists and "Hit Music" as one of his favorite songs of theirs, although in 2007 he instead chose "Being Boring" as one of his Desert Island Discs. Chris and Neil were sufficiently impressed by Chris Porter's and, more significantly, Pete Cleadell's previous work with George Michael to work with them as well. George also invited the Boys to be his opening act at his 2007 Wembly Arena concert, but they politely declined. And, oh yes, the PSB song "Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend"—or at least its title—was inspired in part by a photo in a tabloid paper of George on the arm of an attractive young woman.

Hands down, the greatest standalone (words and music) female songwriter in rock/pop music history. And sometimes I'm tempted not even to use the qualifier "female" there. Her songs have more layers than the earth's crust, and are about as deep. I mean, I could write a few dozen pages about the astounding "Amelia" alone, in which the repeated refrain "It was just a false alarm" becomes a cry of simultaneous anguish and relief over the realization of having narrowly escaped becoming as lost—spiritually, if not physically—as the doomed aviatrix of the title.

Favorite album: Court and Spark (1974)

Favorite songs:

• "A Case of You" (1971)
• "Shades of Scarlet Conquering" (1975)
• "Amelia" (1976)

Recommended DVD: Woman of Heart and Mind - A Life Story (2003)

PSB connections: Neil has listed Mitchell's Hejira (on which one of my faves, "Amelia," appears) as among his own favorite albums, describing that album's "Coyote" as "the song I like most from that period." Also, in the June 2005 issue of the U.K. magazine Word, he said of Joni, "We met her once, in a hotel in L.A. when the Oscars were on.… She was very sexy! I told her I loved her records and her reply was, 'I love your videos.' I'm sure she meant to be nice but I thought, 'Agh! You bitch….'"

The favorites of my teenage years, just the thing for a sensitive, somewhat brainy little nerd like me.* Yeah, the "mystical" stuff sounds like drivel to me now, but much of the rest has stood the test of time—and, regardless, they'll always claim a warm spot in my heart. Whatever else you might say, when Justin Hayward was good, he was very good: such songs as "The Actor," "Lovely to See You," "Question," "It's Up to You," and "The Story in Your Eyes" are superb by any reasonable standards. My pet peeve: they deserve to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it's simply rockist snobbery that they aren't—the same rockist snobbery, not so incidentally, that will probably keep PSB out as well. Then again, I suspect the Pet Shop Boys (who have repeatedly expressed their utter contempt for the very concept of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) have a better chance of making it than the Moody Blues; rock critics tend actually to like the Pet Shop Boys.

Favorite album: A Question of Balance (1970)

Favorite songs:

• "Lovely to See You" (1969)
• "Dawning Is the Day" (1970)
• "New Horizons" (1972)

Recommended DVD: A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra (1992)

PSB connections: I admit that it's not exactly the passing of the torch, but the Moody Blues had their last U.S. Top 10 hit, "Your Wildest Dreams," in the same year (1986) that the Pet Shop Boys had their first, "West End Girls."

*A true story: It was the Christmas shopping season of 1970. My parents knew that I loved rock/pop music and wanted to buy me a record album, but they didn't know enough about my specific tastes to know what to get. They went to the music section of our favorite department store and asked a clerk for recommendations. He asked them to describe my personality. They did (undoubtedly it would have been the equivalent, as expressed by loving parents, of "a sensitive, somewhat brainy little nerd") and, based on their description, the clerk recommended the Moody Blues' recently released A Question of Balance. They bought it and gave it to me for Christmas, and I loved it—my very first and still my favorite Moody Blues album.

Quite possibly the most curmudgeonly of all songwriters, with an incredible ear for melody and arrangements, not to mention a nasty satiric streak that somehow, sometimes manages to be too subtle for his own good.* And when he's not being particularly satirical, as in "Marie" and "Louisiana 1927," he can be as deeply moving as songwriters get. All in all, a man after my own heart.

Favorite album: Good Old Boys (1974)

Favorite songs:

• "Sail Away" (1972)
• "Marie" (1974)
• "I Love L.A." (1983)

Recommended DVD: Live at the Odeon (1993)

PSB connections: Neil once described the song "I Don't Want to Hear It Any More," written by Randy Newman (and as performed by Dusty Springfield) as a particular favorite: "It just breaks my heart to listen to it.… Ah! It's a great record." (Not surprisingly, he selected Dusty's rendition of that song as another of his Desert Island Discs.) Interestingly, one of my own favorite Newman songs, the lovely "Marie," is sung from the perspective of a man who can tell his wife that he loves her only when he's drunk—written nearly thirty years before Chris and Neil covered similar territory from the other angle. Finally, one of Newman's most famous compositions is titled "Sail Away"—not the same "Sail Away," however, that the Pet Shop Boys recorded. That one was written by another great songwriter, Noël Coward.

*Often it's not just a matter of subtlety but of complexity as well. Newman is the master of double-edged satire, where he turns the joke around in the opposite direction. For instance, in "Rednecks" (infamous for its repeated use of the "n-word") it's obvious that he's satirizing U.S. Southern racists. But he also uses it to excoriate the condescension and hypocrisy of Northern liberals—rather ferociously, I might add. In "I Love L.A." he simultaneously parodies and celebrates Los Angeles, turning the joke back on himself because he in fact does love L.A. despite his tacit acknowledgment ("Look at that bum over there—man, he's down on his knees!") that he really shouldn't.

There's a reason why The Dark Side of the Moon is one of the best-selling albums of all time: it's that damn good. But, as great as it is, there's so much more to Pink Floyd than that one album. Everything from Meddle through The Wall is terrific. Some of the most thoughtful, melodic, haunting, and—especially in the later material before Roger Waters left—downright angry rock ever made. And, no, you don't have to be stoned to enjoy it.

Favorite album: The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

Favorite songs:

• "Time" (1973)
• "Have a Cigar" (1975)
• "Comfortably Numb" (1979)

Recommended DVD: Pulse (1994)

PSB connections: For their Nightlife tour, Chris and Neil used a lighting engineer who had formerly worked with Pink Floyd—impressive creditials when you consider Pink Floyd's longstanding reputation for state-of-the-art stage lighting. And it was the Scissor Sisters' outrageous Bee Gees-on-ecstasy remake of the Floyd classic "Comfortably Numb" that helped persuade the Boys to tap them (the Sisters, that is) for remixing "Flamboyant." During the Fundamental sessions, producer Trevor Horn thought that "Luna Park" sounded like Pink Floyd. But Neil has noted on more than one occasion that he has no fondness for Pink Floyd's music.

The biggest case of career suicide ever*—which I, perverse being that I am, find strangely compelling. Then again, his 2006 single "Black Sweat" mightily affirms the potential for full-fledged resurrection. But none of it would mean a thing if it weren't for the fact that, back in the eighties, before he changed his name to a glyph and morphed into a punchline, he unleashed a string of jaw-droppingly innovative singles (most notably "Little Red Corvette," "Kiss," "U Got the Look," and the greatest jaw-dropper of them all, "When Doves Cry") that forever cemented his place in the pantheon of popular music.

Favorite album: Purple Rain (1984)

Favorite songs:

• "Do It All Night" (1980)**
• "When Doves Cry" (1984)
• "U Got the Look" (1987)

Recommended DVD: Sign 'o' the Times (1987) - Out of print, but worth finding.

PSB connections: Neil and Chris attended a party thrown by Prince in August 1986 to celebrate his first U.K. shows in five years. At various times Neil has cited specific Prince albums or songs as favorites, including Music from Grafitti Bridge, "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," and "If I Was Your Girlfriend." Of the latter, he told New Musical Express, "I think it's very brave for such a heterosexual man as Prince to imagine he's a woman."

*One might quibble with my "biggest case of career suicide ever" claim for Prince—especially when you consider Michael Jackson. But MJ is a special case. The term "career suicide" hardly does it justice. Perhaps "career apocalypse."

**Another true story, this time from the summer of 1981—several years before Prince became a superstar with Purple Rain. Living in Minneapolis at the time, I used to hang out quite a bit with a gay softball team. (The stories I could tell about that—but not in a public forum like this.) We had just completed our annual "Gays vs. Cops" all-star game. The police team had won (unlike a year or two before), so they were feeling good about it. Anyway, everybody—the gay players, the cops, and their wives and girlfriends—headed down to one of the local gay bars to celebrate. When the DJ put on local wunderkind Prince's "Do It All Night," the place erupted into a frenzied communal dance boasting every conceivable combination of partners, including cops dancing with gay guys and gay guys dancing with the cops' wives. I ended up dancing with one of the wives, but there was this one cop that I would much rather—oh, never mind. That memory alone, if nothing else, guarantees the song a ranking among my favorites.

Kinda like the Moody Blues, but without the mellotron and with much, much stranger lyrics. In fact, resident wordsmith Keith Reid is responsible for some of the most weirdly poetic stanzas in pop music history (such as the one from the bizarrely erotic "Luskus Delph" that concludes, "Make me split like chicken fat"). Singer-pianist Gary Brooker took his tales of drunkenness, venereal disease, undead sailors, gluttonous infants, pathologically jealous siblings, and homicidal cowboy hat-wearing felines—all couched in metaphors so thick that nearly every line seems to carry multiple meanings—and set them to stately and/or melodramatic music that makes it easy to forget just how warped some of this stuff really is. And when guitarist and eventual Hendrix emulator Robin Trower occasionally got his hands on those lyrics, all hell could break loose. Frankly, I'm surprised that "Poor Mohammed" hasn't earned them a fatwa.

Favorite album: Broken Barricades (1971)

Favorite songs:

• "A Salty Dog" (1969)
• "Simple Sister" (1971)
• "Bringing Home the Bacon" (1973)

Recommended DVD: Live at the Union Chapel (2004)

PSB connections: Friends and pets play a role in both bands' names. The Pet Shop Boys, after all, were named for petshop-owning friends. And Procol Harum borrowed their name from a friend's Burmese cat.

This one snuck up on me. If anyone had asked me, "Are you a fan of Queen?" I would have said, "Not especially." And yet, as I look at my music collection, I have to admit that Queen is well represented. As with George Michael, I think I like them in spite of myself. In addition to their democratic approach to songwriting (all four were highly capable songwriters), I think what finally won me over was their relentlessly tongue-in-cheek style coupled with an equally relentless devotion to quality. I don't think they ever took themselves seriously—although I'm sure they were very serious about their music. Here's where I commit heresy: I don't actually like any of their studio albums overall, but they were a killer singles band. Hence my choice of favorite album.

Favorite album: Greatest Hits I & II (1995)

Favorite songs:

• "Somebody to Love" (1977)
• "Radio Ga-Ga" (1984)
• "A Kind of Magic" (1986)

Recommended DVD: Greatest Video Hits 2 (2003)

PSB connections: Queen concluded the original vinyl edition of their 1989 album The Miracle with a song titled "Was It All Worth It." Two years later, the Pet Shop Boys would end Discography with "Was It Worth It?" Undoubtedly a coincidence, but an interesting one. There are a number of other interesting connections as well, perhaps most significantly that both released collaborations with another musician in this list, David Bowie: Queen with "Under Pressure" and PSB of course with "Hallo Spaceboy." And, like a number of other artists listed here (the Beatles, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Genesis, and Pink Floyd), Queen shares with the Pet Shop Boys the honor of receiving the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Interestingly, while Neil has said on more than one occasion that he has never been a fan, Chris chose Queen's "The Show Must Go On" as one of his selections on their 2005 Back to Mine various artists compilation.

So he's a notorious multi-culti dilettante. I can excuse it when the results have been so consistently satisfying. And he's one of the three or four greatest songwriters of his generation, which is saying quite a bit. A lot of musicians would give their left arm—well, maybe at least one or two of their fingers—to write something as good as "Something So Right."

Favorite album: There Goes Rhymin' Simon (1973)

Favorite songs:

• "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" (1972)
• "Something So Right" (1973)
• "Graceland" (1986)

Recommended DVD: Graceland - The African Concert (1991)

PSB connections: Paul Simon, Neil Tennant, and Chris Lowe have an interesting characteristic in common: they all share their names with other prominent figures. Paul Simon was also the name of the late former U.S. senator from Illinois (serving 1985–1997); Neil Tennant is the name of a contemporary scholar/philosopher; and there are a remarkable number of other Chris Lowes of varying degrees of fame, including a jazz musician (who, coindentally, plays trombone, which "our" Chris can also play), the bass player for the band Dexter Freebish, a soccer player, a financier, an actor, and several academicians.

Garfunkel's solo voice and/or the blend of the two of them together were the perfect vehicles for Simon's wonderful songs. Their actual recorded output was surprisingly small considering the impact and influence they've had—which serves to underscore the overall quality of their work.

Favorite album: Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)

Favorite songs:

• "America" (1968)
• "The Boxer" (1969)
• "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (1970)

Recommended DVD: Old Friends, Live on Stage (2004)

PSB connections: Paul Simon wrote and Simon and Garfunkel recorded "The Only Living Boy in New York." Nearly thirty years later the Pet Shop Boys wrote and recorded "New York City Boy." What is it about boys in New York City? (See the Manhattan Transfer, above.)

Before the perfectionist lethargy set in (you can hear it looming in Aja, but the songs were just too good to be denied) they were the greatest—as well as most intelligent and comically cynical—rock band of the seventies. In my humble opinion, Becker-Fagen are in a three-way race with Tennant-Lowe and John-Taupin for the title of best songwriting duo since Lennon-McCartney. All cynicism aside, anyone who could come up with the line "The spore is on the wind tonight" (from "Rose Darling") as a metaphor for sexual desire is, dare I say, a poet. But you can pretty much forget anything they've recorded after reuniting in the 1990s; it pales by comparison.

Favorite album: Katy Lied (1975)

Favorite songs:

• "My Old School" (1973)
• "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number" (1974)
• "Aja" (1977)

Recommended DVD: There are a few DVDs, but so far none that I can recommend.

PSB connections: Both are songwriting teams who fairly drip with irony. Yes, I know the Boys don't like to be called "ironic"—in the immortal words of Neil Tennant, "Irony is shit"—but I'm afraid the shoe does often fit.

Here's the formula: I love late seventies disco music in general (I was there, baby!), and Donna Summer, usually in collaboration with producer-composer Giorgio Moroder, consistently made some of the greatest disco music of the late seventies.* You do the math. But if you want real evidence, look no further than "I Feel Love," one of the most innovative singles in popular music history—the mother of all technopop. It may not sound like such a big deal nowadays but, lemme tell ya, in 1977 it was radical.

Favorite album: Bad Girls (1979)

Favorite songs:

• "I Feel Love" (1977)
• "Macarthur Park Suite" (1978)
• "Our Love" (1979)

Recommended DVD: VH1 Presents - Live & More Encore! (1999)

PSB connections: German synthesist-composer-producer Harold Faltermeyer, who cut his professional teeth working extensively with Summer and Moroder during their disco heyday, co-produced the Pet Shop Boys' album Behaviour. When asked which pop record he would like played at his funeral, Chris (appropriately but perhaps facetiously) chose Summer's "Last Dance." The Boys paid direct tribute to the "queen of disco" with their collaborative cover with Sam Taylor-Wood (in the guise of Kiki Kokova) of Summer's first big hit, "Love to Love You, Baby." (A more tenuous connection is the fact that the PSB song "New York City Boy," though a Village People tribute, contains a bridge with an instrumental arrangement highly reminiscent of Summer's hit version of "Macarthur Park.") And Donna beat the Boys by two decades in covering Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime… Moi Non Plus."

*Her only real competition was Chic, whose brilliant and almost neurotically stylized "Good Times" is one of my all-time favorite singles. And don't forget "Le Freak" as well as their writing and production of the equally brilliant "We Are Family" for Sister Sledge and "Upside Down"/"I'm Coming Out" for Diana Ross. But Chic doesn't make my favorite artists list because the number of their songs that I like is relatively small compared to the other artists listed here.

Who'd have thought that a quartet of such preppy white kids could have created music that was simultaneously so arty and funky? If you don't get it, listen to their albums Remain in Light, Speaking in Tongues, and Little Creatures. If you don't get it after that, see their amazing concert film Stop Making Sense.* If you still don't get it, I can't possibly help you.

Favorite album: Little Creatures (1985)

Favorite songs:

• "The Good Thing" (1978)
• "Girlfriend Is Better" (1983)
• "Television Man" (1985)

Recommended DVD: Stop Making Sense (1984)

PSB connections: David Byrne, the Talking Heads' erstwhile leader—I want to call him the "head Head" so badly I could just burst—has, like the Pet Shop Boys ("My October Symphony") and the aforementioned Kate Bush (see above), drawn upon the services of the Balanescu String Quartet. In 1988, the Quartet joined Byrne for a series of live concert performances.

*I went to see Stop Making Sense during its first week of theatrical film release back in the early eighties. It literally had people up and dancing in the aisles of the movie theater. Now, maybe I lead a sheltered life, but I had never seen that happen before and I've never seen it happen since.

If the Moodies were the faves of my teen years, these guys—the greatest and most enduring of the Italian-American doo-wop groups—were the faves of my pre-teen years. Like their contemporaries the Beach Boys, they quickly transcended their initial genre and produced some of the most vivacious music of the sixties. Frankie's often astonishing voice, boasting the most remarkable falsetto in the history of recorded music, struck a chord in me even then. Just take a few minutes to really listen to his incredibly intense performance in one of his group's lesser hits, "Girl Come Running." It only got up to #30 on the Billboard singles chart, but it's one of the great pop vocals of all time. Bandmate Bob Gaudio wrote some terrific tunes, too. In fact, let's hope the Pet Shop Boys can match the legendary longevity of the Valli-Gaudio musical partnership, which has lasted more than 40 years. And on a handshake, no less.

Favorite album: 25th Anniversary Collection (1987)

Favorite songs:

• "Dawn (Go Away)" (1964)
• "Girl Come Running" (1965)
• "Let's Hang On!" (1965)

Recommended DVD: The DVD that accompanies the 2007 boxed set Jersey Beat: The Music of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

PSB connections: Well, the Pet Shop Boys did turn "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You"—which was co-written by Gaudio and originally performed solo by Valli—into an unlikely hit medley with "Where the Streets Have No Name." Speaking of which, lest you think that Chris and Neil were completely original in that irreverent deconstruction of rock mythos, consider what the Four Seasons did (in the guise of "The Wonder Who?") more than a quarter-century earlier to Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice": an utterly surreal 1965 hit rendition that Frankie sang in a meta-falsetto, sounding like little Shirley Temple on uppers.

I haven't felt this enthusiastic over "discovering" an artist for myself in more than a decade—in fact, not since I "discovered" the Pet Shop Boys. Rufus Wainwright is one of the most original, moving, and imaginative singer-songwriters I've ever heard, the creator of unexpected melodies, intelligent lyrics, and eclectic arrangements that owe equal debts to classical, Broadway, ragtime, rock, pop, and folk. The breathtaking Want One is an instant classic if there ever was one. And its follow-ups, the even more ambitious Want Two and the deceptively "poppier" but still absolutely brilliant Release the Stars, are also spectacular.

Favorite album: Release the Stars (2007)

Favorite songs:

• "I Don't Know What It Is" (2003)
• "Dinner at Eight" (2003)
• "Sanssouci" (2007)

Recommended DVD: All I Want (2004)

PSB connections: Rufus interviewed Neil in the January 2000 issue of Interview magazine. Neil is a professed Rufus fan, having praised his work highly in print on more than one occasion, and even going so far as to cite Want One as his favorite album of 2003. He also appears in several brief interview segments on Wainwright's DVD All I Want, commenting on the younger artist's work. In the Want One liner notes, Rufus includes both Neil and Chris in his "thank you" list. (Apparently our heroes provided some helpful advice and encouragement.) Further, Neil and Rufus were interviewed together in 2004—talking about songwriting and the state of contemporary pop music—for the London Daily Telegraph. Rufus appeared as a guest vocalist at the Boys' special May 2006 BBC Radio concert with orchestra, singing their "Casanova in Hell." (This show, including Rufus's performance, was recorded for the live album Concrete.) And Neil served a consulting "executive producer" role (and sang backup and/or played instruments on several tracks) on Rufus's 2007 album Release the Stars. So it should be no surprise that Neil can be spotted taking his seat in the star-studded audience near the start of the 2007 DVD Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! Live from the London Palladium, during which Rufus performs "If Love Were All." (Chris was apparently in attendance as well, but he doesn't appear on the DVD.)

Maybe it's because Who's Next is, in my opinion, a serious contender for the greatest rock album of all time—that and my (admittedly arguable) beliefs that Keith Moon was rock's greatest drummer and John Entwistle its greatest bassist. And while Pete Townshend is hardly rock's greatest guitarist and songwriter, he's certainly no slouch in either department. As much as I love the Pet Shop Boys, I have to say that the best concert by far that I've ever attended was by the Who back in the mid-seventies on their final North American tour before Moon died. I consider myself blessed.

Favorite album: Who's Next (1971)

Favorite songs:

• "Baba O'Riley" (1971)
• "Won't Get Fooled Again" (1971)
• "However Much I Booze" (1975)

Recommended DVD: The Kids Are Alright (1979)

PSB connections: Pete Townshend is another artist who, like Chris and Neil, supports the War Child charity.

I know I sound like a broken record (remember them?), but he's a remarkable songwriter, in spite of his predilection for contorted syntax. His early embrace of and experimentation with synthesizers pushed the envelope for electronic keyboards. He is, quite simply, an incalculable influence on half of everything from the seventies on. And if that weren't all, with "Isn't She Lovely" he wrote and sang the single happiest song in the known universe. That alone is enough for me.

Favorite album: Innervisions (1973)

Favorite songs:

• "Living for the City" (1973)
• "Boogie On Reggae Woman" (1974)
• "Isn't She Lovely" (1976)

Recommended DVD: Not much available, and nothing really worth recommending.

PSB connections: Neil has cited Innervisions as one of his favorite albums, too.

Another guilty pleasure. Yes, there was excess. (Tales from Topographic Oceans, anyone?) Yes, Jon Anderson's lyrics often bordered on nonsense. Yes, those asteroids did look a lot like giant floating mushrooms. But these guys were virtuosos who transcended the dross through the sheer weight of their talent. And they can take credit for some of the most transcendently beautiful passages in all of prog rock.

Favorite album: Close to the Edge (1972)

Favorite songs:

• "Roundabout" (1972)
• "Siberian Khatru" (1972)
• "Going for the One" (1977)

Recommended DVD: Keys to Ascension (2001) – As with the Pet Shop Boys' Montage, the video inserts can be annoying, but it's still a superb performance.

PSB connections: Trevor Horn, who has worked quite a bit with the Boys (he co-produced "Left to My Own Devices," remixed the single version of "It's Alright," co-wrote and -performed "The Sound of the Atom Splitting," and, last but certainly not least, produced their albums Fundamental and Concrete, on which he also performs as a supporting musician), was briefly a member of Yes—the lead singer, in fact—around 1980, during the recording of their album Drama. After he left the band, he continued for a while to serve as their producer and was largely responsible for Yes's biggest radio hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart."

The "Top Ten"

Somebody asked me, "Out of all your favorites, who would be in your 'Top Ten'?" I tried to choose subjectively, but found it extremely difficult. So I decided to use a far more objective method: I would base my Top Ten choices on the number of CDs (including singles and—gasp!—bootlegs) and DVDs that I own by each artist. Therefore, using that "purely scientific" criterion, here are my Top Ten favorite artists in descending order:

1. Pet Shop Boys
2. Beach Boys/Brian Wilson
3. Madonna
4. Manhattan Transfer
5. Beatles
6. Genesis
7. Steely Dan
8. Erasure
9. Elton John
10. Moody Blues

Incidentally, if I didn't count CD singles, the Beach Boys/Brian Wilson would easily replace PSB in first place.

My Favorite Albums by Artists
Who Are Not Among My Favorites

In addition, I count a number of other albums among my favorites despite the fact that I wouldn't place those who created them among my favorite artists. (Most of them would, however, make it into my "second tier," so to speak.) Please note that I don't include my favorite "best of" or "greatest hits" albums here; otherwise this list would be damn near interminable.

• Achtung Baby (1991) - U2
• All Things Must Pass (1970) - George Harrison
• Are You Experienced? (1967) - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
• Automatic for the People (1992) - R.E.M.
• Brothers in Arms (1985) - Dire Straits
• The Cars (1978) - The Cars
• Chicago II (1970) - Chicago
• City to City (1978) - Gerry Rafferty
• Diva (1992) - Annie Lennox
• High Crime (1984) - Al Jarreau
• Hopes and Fears (2004) - Keane
• John Barleycorn Must Die (1970) - Traffic
• Learning to Crawl (1984) - The Pretenders
• The Nightfly (1982) - Donald Fagen
• No Secrets (1972) - Carly Simon
• …Nothing Like the Sun (1987) - Sting
• One Eighty (1980) - Ambrosia
• She's So Unusual (1983) - Cyndi Lauper
• Silk Degrees (1976) - Boz Scaggs
• Starless and Bible Black (1974) - King Crimson
• Surfacing (1998) - Sarah McLachlan
• Tapestry (1971) - Carole King
• Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (1970) - Spirit
• Tubular Bells* (1973) - Mike Oldfield
• A Wizard, A True Star (1973) - Todd Rundgren
• (aka IV, Runes, and Zoso) (1971) - Led Zeppelin

  *To truly enjoy Tubular Bells, however, you may find it necessary to chant to yourself every few minutes: "It's not responsible for 'New Age' music…. It's not responsible for 'New Age' music…."

Copyright © 2001-2008 by Wayne Studer. All Rights Reserved. All lyrics and images copyright © their respective dates by their respective owners. Brief quotations and small, low-resolution images are used for identification and critical commentary; it is therefore believed that they constitute Fair Use under U.S. copyright law.