Songs on which Chris sings (or "speaks") lead
I'm not counting songs in which Chris's voice can be clearly heard but in which he takes a decidedly secondary role, such as the original 7" version of "I Want a Dog," in which he recites a list of dog breeds during the instrumental break. In such cases Neil is nevertheless the lead singer. No, I'm focusing here on songs in which Chris's voice is either dominant or at least equal to Neil's. There aren't many of them—
Neil sings the repeated "Paninaro—oh, oh, oh" chorus, but Chris speaks what amounts to the verses and bridge.
This time Neil sings the bridge (nothing more than the title), but Chris sing-speaks the verses and chorus in a voice that's heavily distorted, almost to the point of unintelligibility.
3. We All Feel Better in the Dark
The Neil-chorus, Chris-verses pattern again, but at least this time Chris's voice isn't electronically distorted—only somewhat buried in the mix.
Essentially an instrumental, though Chris's distorted voice intones the title at strategic points. (The "Oh, yeahs," however, are pitch-adjusted samples from another artist's track, "Sanctuary of Love" by Zhana’.)
5. Postscript
For the first time in recorded history, Chris actually sings in his natural voice, though multi-tracked to the point that, when I first heard this, I thought it was the same male chorus that handled the background vocals on the preceding song, "Go West."
6. Euroboy
Chris and Neil pretty much share the lead vocal in this track, with Chris's voice disguised through the use of a Vocoder.
7. Somewhere (Extended Mix)
Although Chris's voice is heard little if any in most mixes of this PSB remake, he's quite prominent in the Extended Mix, in which he recites some of the lyrics of another song from West Side Story, "One Hand, One Heart"—effectively taking the lead, however briefly, during that part of the track.
8. Lies
Chris's second full-fledged singing vocal, and not so heavily multi-tracked this time around.
Chris does the recurring "count up" throughout the song, and although Neil repeatedly sings a couple of lines of more substantive lyrics, his voice is so profoundly distorted that he's essentially unintelligible. It boils down to a co-lead vocal between the two of them.
10. This Used to Be the Future
In this song Neil, Chris, and guest Phil Oakey of The Human League trade off lead vocals. It qualifies as Chris's third recorded instance of outright, traditional singing as opposed to "speaking" or even "speak-singing."
11. Subculture
True, it's not a "PSB song" (rather it's by Stop Modernists, with whom Chris guests), but it's certainly a lead vocal by Chris. In fact, it's his "biggest" lead to date, with more "air time" than ever before and no discernable studio treatment to speak of (aside from some admitted tweaking with Melodyne software).
12. Axis
"Electric energy, electric energy…." Though essentially an instrumental, this opening track to Electric does include some passing vocal interjections by both Neil and Chris (as well as what sounds like at least one other background vocalist) in roughly equal amounts. So while it may be a stretch to refer to Chris's vocals on this track as a "lead," it's at least as much of a lead as Neil's.
13. Decide
Neil's voice is heard first in the opening and subsequent refrains, but Chris—electronically/digitally distorted as is often the case—takes the lead in the verses.
And possibly—
Chris has stated that the "male part" in this duet with Sam Taylor-Wood is performed by a Macintosh computer, but I'd be surprised if Chris's own voice didn't play at least some part in the proceedings.
15. Get It Online
The heavily processed voice that sing-speaks "Whatever I want… I can get it online" may be computer-generated, but its inflections sufficiently resemble those of Chris that, if nothing else, his actual voice probably served as the template on which the final product was based. And it may in fact be his voice, only distorted. Neil sings lead for part of this track as well, making it a co-lead. Toward the end the two even sing together, making it one of their rare duets.
16. Through You
Again, the thickly processed voice singing the three opening stanzas (which actually consist of an initial variation on the chorus and then two choruses proper) could be Chris "in disguise."
And just for clarification—
- The Ulrich Schnauss remix of "Memory of the Future" does not include Chris's singing, despite the fact that it sounds very much like him toward the end. Rather, it's Schnauss himself singing that additional vocal line, a fact that has been confirmed by both Schnauss and faithful PSB assistant Pete Gleadall. And if any of us should take umbrage at Herr Schnauss interjecting his voice into a remix of a Pet Shop Boys track, remember: Neil has done as much on more than one PSB remix of other artists' songs as well (such as their remixes of Madonna's "Sorry").
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