Hot for You Baby
by Tina Turner
Writers - Young/Vanda
First released - 2025
Original album - Private Dancer - 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Tina Turner)
Producer - John Carter
Subsequent albums - (none)
Other releases - none at this time
"Hot for You Baby" is a studio outtake from the sessions for Tina Turner's most successful album, her huge 1984 comeback Private Dancer. It remained unreleased until nearly two years after Turner's 2023 death, finally appearing on the 2025 release of the album's expansive 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, which consists of five (!) CDs and a Blu-ray disc. There it appears in its original hard-rocking form, but about a month later a new Pet Shop Boys remix debuted online.
The PSB Remix abandons the hard-rock stylings of the original's backing track, but can't fully escape the fundamentally rocking mannerisms of Tina's vocal. But they swathe her voice in an almost completely electronic setting—heavily "synthesized" keyboards and percussion—while drawing upon the studio track's male "Hot for you baby" background vocals to provide a dissonent, cacophonous, nearly arrhythmic accompaniment. At a couple of points they even employ what sounds like a sampled split second of them to create a percussive effect akin to a dog's bark, possibly meant as a sort of "Pet Shop Boy joke." But somewhat unusually for a PSB remix these days, it doesn't sound as though Neil has inserted any new backing vocals of his own.
It's a remarkable reimaging of the original track. Given that Tina was reportedly a bit disappointed that the Boys hadn't back in the 1990s provided her with a more uptempo dance song (as opposed to the ballad "Confidential"), I imagine she would've been quite pleased with this.
Mixes/Versions
Officially released
- Mixer: Pet Shop Boys
- Pet Shop Boys Remix (5:49)
List cross-references
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