Past PSB Survey Results - 2008 Surveys

This page presents the results of surveys I've conducted in the year 2008. The results of surveys conducted in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 , and 2007 appear on separate pages.

Note: The response in each survey that received the most votes is highlighted in bold red. I usually list the responses in descending order according to the number of votes, but in a few cases I've decided that the results may be clearer or more meaningful if I list them in some other order. Incidentally, I do vote in my own surveys—and, yes, I vote only once. More often than not, what I vote for doesn't come in first place. In the results below, the symbol ¤ appears after the item(s) that I voted for in each survey.

If the Pet Shop Boys were to record a cover vesion of a song from the Beatles' great "middle period" (late 1965 through early 1968)—the albums Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Magical Mystery Tour, along with other songs recorded during the same period—which one would you most like them to cover?¹

15.3% - "I'm not familiar enough with these songs to make a choice."
15.0% - "I wouldn't want them to cover any Beatles song."
05.8% - A Day in the Life
05.6% - Eleanor Rigby
05.0% - Strawberry Fields Forever
05.0% - Across the Universe
04.2% - We Can Work It Out
02.5% - I Am the Walrus ¤²
02.2% - She's Leaving Home
02.2% - Hello Goodbye
02.2% - Only a Northern Song
01.9% - In My Life
01.9% - Penny Lane
01.9% - All You Need Is Love
01.9% - Fool on the Hill
01.9% - Lady Madonna
01.7% - Nowhere Man
01.4% - I'm Only Sleeping
01.4% - Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
01.4% - For No One
01.4% - Here, There, and Everywhere
01.4% - Tomorrow Never Knows
01.4% - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
01.4% - "I wouldn't mind them covering a Beatles song, but not one of these."³
01.1% - Drive My Car
01.1% - Got to Get You Into My Life
01.1% - When I'm Sixty Four
00.8% - Taxman
00.8% - Within You Without You
00.8% - Paperback Writer
00.8% - Getting Better

Each of these songs received 2 votes (00.6%) each:

• Day Tripper
• And Your Bird Can Sing
• Michelle
• She Said She Said
• Yellow Submarine
• Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
• Baby You're a Rich Man
• Magical Mystery Tour
• Flying

Each of these songs received 1 vote (00.3%) each:

• Rain
• What Goes On
• Run for Your Life
• Good Morning Good Morning
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
• Your Mother Should Know
• Hey Bulldog

¹This question was inspired by the fact that Chris and Neil once began working on a cover of "Fool on the Hill," but quickly abandoned it. I narrowed the choices of songs to the Beatles' "middle period" both because it's my own favorite musical phase of the Beatles' career and because it simply made creating and managing the poll much simpler. I listed all sixty-some middle-period songs as choices in this poll, but I'm only listing the ones that received votes here in the results; if a song isn't listed, no one voted for it.

²Regarding my own choice, although "I Am the Walrus" isn't at the top of my list of favorite Beatles song (that distinction goes to "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," and "A Day in the Life"), I am very fond of it, I love imagining what the Boys could do with a song with such bizarre lyrics, and I believe that, musically, it would lend itself very well to "PSB treatment."

³Although five voters picked this option, the only other Beatles song—that is, from their early or late period as opposed to their middle period—that was specifically identified by one of them was "It Won't Be Long."

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What is your favorite PSB album cover art/packaging?¹

28.6% - Very (the original "Lego" box)
15.8% - Very/Relentless (special edition with the textured translucent plastic gatefold)
09.4% - Actually ¤²
08.6% - Behaviour
05.3% - Introspective
05.1% - Alternative (including its "lenticular" special edition)
04.5% - Bilingual (original "frosted" cover)
04.3% - Nightlife
04.0% - Release (including all of its variations)
03.7% - Fundamental
01.9% - Please
01.6% - Discography
01.6% - PopArt
01.3% - Disco 3
01.3% - Something else not listed here³
01.1% - Disco 4
00.8% - Bilingual (special edition with Neil seated)
00.3% - Disco
00.3% - Very (later version with a picture of the original "Lego" box)
00.3% - Disco 2
00.3% - Concrete
00.0% - Battleship Potemkin

¹This question was a "rerun" of one that I first asked nearly seven years before, when I had far fewer voters (that is, site visitors) and there were of course fewer albums from which to choose. If you like, you can see the results of that earlier poll.

²As for my own choice, I've long been torn between Actually and the original Very packaging as my favorite. My head says Very (that orange "Lego" box is incredibly innovative and about as distinctive as you can get), but my heart says Actually (with its iconic, absolutely unforgettable tuxedoed shot of Chris half-scowling and Neil yawning). It's a real toss-up for me, but I ultimately decided to go with my heart.

³The other items cited by voters who chose "Something else" were:

• Japanese Behaviour in the white felt/velvet box (2 votes)
• PopArt 3-CD box set (1 vote)
• "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas"—although it's not an album (1 vote)

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Throughout their career, commentators have often referred to the Pet Shop Boys and/or their music and lyrics as "melancholy"—so much so that it has become a cliché. On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 0 meaning "Not melancholy at all; in fact, it's downright happy," and 10 meaning "Completely, despairingly, almost suicidally melancholy"), how would you rate the "melancholia" of each PSB studio album?*

*For the purposes of this poll, I counted Alternative among the studio albums.

Incidentally, the average overall rating—taking every voter's votes for every album and averaging them all together—comes out to be 5.030, which of course is just a hair's breadth past the exact mid-point of 5.000. In other words, the Pet Shop Boys don't seem overall to be "unduly melancholy," at least in the eyes (and ears) of my fellow fans and site visitors! In fact, they appear pretty much average in that department, or maybe just a very little bit more "melancholy than average."

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If the Pet Shop Boys were a missile, what would be their trajectory? Or (to be less metaphorical about it), based on whatever criteria that you personally deem most appropriate—commerical success, artistic achievement, image, ambitions, anything else, or any combination thereof—which of these general "trajectories" most closely matches, in your opinion, that of the Pet Shop Boys?

31.8%		Mostly high with the occasional dip ¤
09.9%		Steady high
09.9%		Erratic with no discernible pattern
06.0%		Mostly midstream with the occasional hop or dip
05.3%		Started high, fell quickly, but leveled off only halfway down
04.6%		Started low, then up, down, and now up again
04.2%		Always zigzagging upward
03.5%		Started low, rose quickly, and then leveled off high
03.2%		Steady midstream
03.2%		Forever going in circles
02.1%		Started low, rose quickly, but leveled off only halfway up
02.1%		Constantly up, down, up, down, up, down …
02.1%		Started high, quickly dipped and stayed down a long time, but suddenly rose again
02.1%		Started low, quickly rose and stayed up for a long time, but suddenly fell down again
02.1%		Started high, then down, up, and now down again
01.4%		Always zigzagging downward
01.1%		Started high, fell gradually at first, but then quickly tumbled
01.1%		Ran on an even keel for a long time, and then suddenly dipped to new lows
01.1%		Started high but steadily fell
00.7%		Started low but steadily rose
00.7%		Started high, fell quickly, and then leveled off low
00.7%		Started high, fell quickly, but quickly sprang back
00.4%		Started low, rose gradually at first, but then shot up
00.4%		Ran on an even keel for a long time, and then suddenly rose to new heights
00.4%		Started low, rose quickly, but quickly fell again
00.0%		Mostly low with the occasional hop
00.0%		Steady low

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In general, which version of Pet Shop Boys singles do you tend most often to like best?

33.5% - The album version*
31.4% - The single version* ¤
20.1% - "I can't generalize about this (for whatever reason)"
12.6% - An official remix
01.8% - A live rendition
00.6% - An "unofficial" remix

*This of course is in those instances in which the album and single versions are different, regardless of which came first.

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Which Pet Shop Boys studio albums have, in your opinion, the best or strongest opening and closing tracks?

*In case you're wondering, although it's no secret that "Being Boring" is my own all-time favorite PSB track, I think "Left to My Own Devices" is even better when it comes to serving the function of "opening" an album. Hence my vote.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Fundamental by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of its associated b-sides or bonus tracks, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Release by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles or on the singles from the next album PopArt, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice.

*My choice of "The Samurai in Autumn" as the song to cut may be surprising considering my well-known antipathy for "Love Is a Catastrophe," one of only two PSB songs that I actually dislike. But although I vastly prefer "Samurai" to "Catastrophe" on their own separate merits, to me "Samurai" seems out of place on Release, with a totally different style and "sound" from the rest of the album, whereas "Catastrophe" fits in very well. So that's why I would delete a song that I like over one that I don't. As for my choice to add "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today," that's no surprise at all: not only is it one of my all-time favorite PSB b-sides, but I believe its rock style would fit in quite nicely with the rest of Release—and, besides, it would give the album a jolt of upbeat energy that it otherwise pretty much lacks, making what is already (in my opinion) a very good album even better.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Nightlife by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Bilingual by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles or from the subsequent single "Somewhere," which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Very by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles or another non-album track recorded around the same time, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice. I purposely didn't include a number of songs among the possible choices (such as "Postscript" among Very's tracks and "Absolutely Fabulous," "Confidential," "Girls and Boys," "Violence," "I Want to Wake Up," and the tracks from Relentless) for various excellent reasons (at least in my opinion) that would take several paragraphs to describe here, so I won't.

*My own choice of the b-side I would add to Very may be surprising since I note elsewhere on this website that "Shameless" is my all-time favorite PSB b-side. But I just wouldn't feel right adding "Shameless" unless I were to cut "Go West," which strikes me as very—almost too—stylistically similar. They seem to "clash," in my opinion. They work well as different sides of the same single, but not so much (to my ears) as "fellow album tracks." Yet I couldn't bear to cut "Go West" from Very. So I chose the song that I would most be willing to delete, which is "To Speak Is a Sin"—as superb as it is—and then picked another ballad-ish song to replace it, that being "Hey, Headmaster."

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Behaviour by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles or on the singles from the subsequent non-studio album Discography, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice. For this poll in particular, a large number of potential voters specifically stated that they wouldn't be voting because they simply couldn't choose any songs to delete from Behaviour. Also, a number of voters said that what they would really like to do is to replace the album mix of "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" with the single mix, heard (with some slight variations) in the music video. Personally, I would concur with that.

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If you had to change the Pet Shop Boys' album Introspective by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles or another non-album song that they recorded around the same time, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice. For this particular poll, because of the special "extended dance mix" format of Introspective, I suggested that voters should feel free to use their imaginations when choosing the "replacement" song, considering either those that already exist in extended versions (such as "Don Juan"), those they think might make good extended remixes (such as "Do I Have To?"), or those that might serve as good intentional contrasts to the format (such as "Your Funny Uncle").

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If you had to change the second Pet Shop Boys studio album, Actually, by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include a "No change" option because it might too predictably have been the top choice.

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If you had to change the first Pet Shop Boys album, Please, by deleting one of its songs and replacing it with one of the b-sides that appeared on its associated singles, which song would you delete and which one would you choose to replace it?

Note: I didn't include "Oppportunities (Reprise)" among the choices to delete because it barely qualifies as a song and would almost certainly have been chosen by the plurality (if not majority) of voters, rendering the results too predictable and uninteresting. I also didn't include a "No change" option because it, too, might very predictably have been the top choice.

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What direction(s) do you think the Pet Shop Boys' career would have taken if they had achieved and sustained far greater commercial success in the United States?

Note: Because voters could make more than one choice, the percentages total to more than 100%.

42.6% - Little if anything would be different. ¤
21.6% - They would have a number of Grammy Awards to their credit by now. ¤
15.8% - They, not Madonna, would be the all-time #1 dance artists in the U.S.
12.6% - Neil wouldn't have publicly "come out" as early as he did (1994), if at all.
10.5% - They would have been far bigger for a time, but then would have collapsed precipitously into has-beens by the new millennium.
07.4% - They would be guaranteed entry soon into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ¤
06.8% - They would have branched off into other media and activities, such as film, even more than they have.
06.3% - They would have been less experimental and adventuresome in their musical scope and ambitions.
05.3% - They would have soon "retired" more into songwriting, production, and other non-performing roles.
04.2% - They would have gone "more rock."
03.2% - They would have gone in a "poppier" direction.
03.2% - They would put out albums less often.
02.6% - They would put out albums more often.
02.6% - They would have broken up by now, with one or both going solo or joining other bands.
02.6% - They would have moved from the U.K. to the U.S. or perhaps elsewhere.
02.6% - They would have become even more experimental and adventuresome in their musical scope and ambitions.
02.6% - They would have been less successful in the rest of the world.
02.1% - They would have descended into decadent, drugged depravity.
02.1% - One or both of them would have become "show business casualties," perhaps achieving post-mortem legendary status in the process.
01.6% - They would have retired and vanished by now into fabulously weatlhy seclusion.
00.0% - I have some other idea of what would probably have happened.*

*Although, interestingly, no one selected the "other idea" option, a few were nevertheless expressed by voters:

• "They would have had a #1 single from the Very album."
• "The most significant difference if the Pet Shop Boys hadn't committed carrier suicide in America … would be that a major label would probably still carry them. The effect of this would be that their music wouldn't cost so much.… As an American PSB fan, I feel that they abandoned their American fans. Maybe they feel betrayed by us."

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Was the first music that you listened to in 2008 by the Pet Shop Boys?

63.8% - No ¤
18.9% - Yes
15.3% - I'm not sure / I don't remember
01.9% - I haven't listened to any music yet in 2008

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To see 2007 survey results, click the "Previous" button below.

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.