Major PSB VHS/LD/DVD Releases

So far the Pet Shop Boys have had 13 major video releases on VHS videotapes, laserdiscs (LDs), and/or DVDs. (This doesn't include limited-edition promos and several other video releases in which they and/or their music have appeared alongside other artists' work, such as the Twentieth-Century Blues video, in which they mime "Sail Away" and "If Love Were All" before a live audience, and their guesting in David Bowie's "Hallo Spaceboy" video, available on his Best of Bowie DVD.) Here are brief descriptions of these major PSB video releases.

The Boys' first video release featured their earliest music videos interspersed with brief excerpts from assorted TV appearances, including their somewhat remarkable guest slots on Soul Train and Video Soul. (It's often forgotten how popular "West End Girls," in particular, was on U.S. black music stations.)

• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) - Version 1
• West End Girls
• Love Comes Quickly
• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money) - Version 2
• Suburbia
• Paninaro

VHS

laserdisc

Their second collection of music videos is distinguished by the fact that it boasts the extended version of the "Domino Dancing" video, which wouldn't turn up again until the 2003 release of the PopArt DVD. Otherwise, it offers nothing that wouldn't later become available on Videography. Interestingly, the Japanese laserdisc version had a different cover, running order and track lineup (leaving out "Heart" and "Domino Dancing"), and title: I Like It Here, Wherever It Is.

• It's a Sin
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• Rent
• Always on My Mind
• Heart
• Domino Dancing (disco version)

Either you love it or you hate it. The Pet Shop Boys' notorious feature-length film was directed by Jack Bond and featured acting performances by Joss Ackland and Barbara Windsor, among others. Surealistic, even rather absurdist in tone, you simply have to see it for yourself and form your own opinions. The following songs are included:

• It's a Sin
• West End Girls
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• Rent
• Always on My Mind
• King's Cross
• Two Divided by Zero
• It Couldn't Happen Here
• One More Chance

Highlights is what is left over from what had originally been intended as a full-length film, directed by Derek Jarman, of the Boys' first full-scale tour. But Chris and Neil, as well as Jarman himself, were apparently rather dissatisfied with the quality of much of the show as it came across on video. So they cut back on the contents of the released version, including only what they felt were the better performances. Bootleg versions of the entire show, however, are apparently available.

• The Sound of the Atom Splitting
• It's a Sin
• Shopping
• Love Comes Quickly
• Domino Dancing
• Rent
• King's Cross
• It's Alright

The Pet Shop Boys' third collection of music videos covers the period of the albums Introspective and Behaviour. Like Showbusiness, it offers nothing that wouldn't soon become available on Videography aside from an extended version of one video—in this case, "So Hard." And even that would later become available on the PopArt DVD.

• Left to My Own Devices
• It's Alright
• So Hard (extended version)
• Being Boring
• How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
• Jealousy

Until the release in 2003 of PopArt, a good case could have been made that this was the PSB video to own: a nearly complete history of the Boys up to 1991 as conveyed by chronologically arranged music videos, with the previously unavailable "DJ Culture" offered to attract fans who already owned the preceding releases. We might quibble with the omissions (Where is the second "Opportunities" video? Why not the "homemade" video for "Paninaro"? Why was "Was It Worth It?" left off of the U.S. and U.K. tapes, appearing only on the videodisc and the Japanese tape?), but with such a wealth of material, those are just quibbles. A stunning collection that would be superseded only when the Boys finally got around to putting out a much more updated video collection on DVD (see PopArt, below).

• West End Girls
• Love Comes Quickly
• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
• Suburbia
• It's a Sin
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• Rent
• Always on My Mind
• Heart
• Domino Dancing
• Left to My Own Devices
• It's Alright
• So Hard
• Being Boring
• How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
• Jealousy
• DJ Culture
• Was It Worth It? (only on videodisc and Japanese VHS)

VHS package

DVD package

To many if not most fans, this is the quintessential "live" PSB show. Wildly ambitious and imaginative, it had critics delving into their thesauruses to find new words of either praise or scorn. Conceived, designed, and staged by opera and theatre directors David Alden and David Fielding, and choreograhed by Jacob Marley, Performance featured a large troupe of dancers, three backup singers, and elaborate costume changes. In fact, the show was so elaborate that the Boys reportedly lost a bundle of their own money putting it on. We're forever in their debt. Speaking on a purely personal note, it was this video that absolutely cemented my fandom. Before I saw it, I liked them for their music. But I grew to love them after this show.

The DVD edition—with a number of extras, including running commentary by the Boys and rehearsal footage—was released in late September 2004 in the U.K. It's an all-region DVD but in the PAL format, which largely limits its TV playability to the U.K., most of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and some parts of South America. (It won't play on my Region 1 DVD player, but it will play on my computer.) An NTSC DVD hasn't yet been released in the U.S., but it was released in Canada in November 2004 and can be readily ordered online from various retail sites. It has even turned up in some "brick and mortar" stores.

At any rate, the featured songs are:

• Intro: Alpine Symphony (Richard Strauss)
• This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave
• It's a Sin
• Losing My Mind
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• My October Syphony
• I'm Not Scared
• We All Feel Better in the Dark
• So Sorry, I Said
• Suburbia
• So Hard
• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
• How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
• Rent
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)*
• West End Girls
• Jealousy
• Always on My Mind
• Your Funny Uncle

*On the original VHS version of Performance the "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You" lyrics and melody had to be excised from the audio track on account of copyright difficulties, leaving just "Where the Streets Have No Name." On the DVD, this original edit is retained for the ordinary stereo mix and the commentary track, but on the Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound and DTS mixes the "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You" lyrics and melody are restored.

This videotape consists of rear-screen projections and videos that director Derek Jarman created for live Pet Shop Boys performances, most particularly their first tour (the one documented in part by the Highlights video). As such, it's perhaps less a "Pet Shop Boys video release" than the others in this list, but it nevertheless provides intriguing visuals as accompaniment for a number of their songs. Note, however, that in the cases of the hit singles, these are not the same as the better-known music videos.

• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
• Heart
• Paninaro
• It's a Sin
• Domino Dancing (Alternative Mix)
• King's Cross
• Always on My Mind
• Violence (Hacienda Version)
• Being Boring

Picking up where Videography left off—though unfortunately still overlooking "Was It Worth It?"—Various presents the music videos from the Very era. All of them feature sophisticated computer-generated graphic imagery to varying degrees, including the completely computer-generated "Liberation" and "Go West (Part 2)." The title is a play not only on the album Very but also on the fact that Neil and Chris appear in various guises, changing with each song. Though largely superseded by the release eight years later of the PopArt DVD, Various is still distinctive and highly collectible as one of only two "legitimate" sources of the "Absolutely Fabulous" video (the other being the 1994 TV show retrospective Absolutely Fabulous Moments).

• Can You Forgive Her?
• Go West
• I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing
• Liberation
• Yesterday, When I Was Mad
• Absolutely Fabulous
• Go West (Part 2)

Punning again on the recent album titles Very and Disco 2, DiscoVery is a live concert video recorded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It documents the borderline-shocking sexual "choreography" of the two male and two female dancers on this particular tour, which (legend has it) almost got the Boys arrested in Singapore. Nevertheless, it represents a significant scaling-down from the elaborate Performance show. Perhaps Chris and Neil decided to actually earn a profit for themselves this time around.

• Tonight Is Forever
• I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing
• Always on My Mind
• Domino Dancing
• To Speak Is a Sin
• One in a Million/Mr. Vain
• Paninaro '95
• Rent
• Suburbia
• King's Cross
• So Hard
• Lef to My Own Devices/Rhythm of the Night
• Absolutely Fabulous
• Liberation
• West End Girls
• Can You Forgive Her?
• Girls and Boys
• It's a Sin/I Will Survive
• Go West
• Go West (reprise)
• Being Boring

Note: Links to Amazon for DVDs are to the U.S. Amazon site and Region 1 versions only.

For their next round of live shows in June 1997, the Pet Shop Boys decided not to go to the fans but rather have the fans come to them. They set up a two-week residence in London's historic Savoy Theatre—appropriately enough given the theatrical origins of their most recent hit single, a remake of the West Side Story classic "Somewhere"—and performed there in concert, using a very simple yet artistic staging that employed backdrop projections created by Sam Taylor-Wood. They were accompanied by just one backup singer (stalwart Sylvia Mason-James) and one dancer. This video is both a fascinating documentary of backstage preparations for that show and of course the show itself.

• Yesterday, When I Was Mad
• The Truck Driver and His Mate
• Se A Vida É (That's the Way Life Is)
• Hallo Spaceboy
• To Step Aside
• Go West
• The Theatre
• It's a Sin/I Will Survive
• Discoteca
• Can You Forgive Her?
• Somewhere
• Rent
• Being Boring
• Left to My Own Devices

Note: Links to Amazon for DVDs are to the U.S. Amazon site and Region 1 versions only.

This is a "modified" record of the Pet Shop Boys' Nightlife tour show—modified in that, rather than presenting a "direct" videotaping of the performance, the images are "treated" in various ways, resulting in sometimes dramatic visual effects. Hence the title Montage. This strategy, however, proved extremely controversial among fans, many (though certainly not all) of whom found the imagery distracting and annoying. Unlike the VHS tape, the DVD release is enhanced with bonus material: the music videos of the three Nightlife singles plus a fourth "hidden" video of the onstage projection for the opening "For Your Own Good."

• West End Girls
• Discoteca
• Being Boring
• Closer to Heaven
• Can You Forgive Her?
• Only the Wind
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• New York City Boy
• Left to My Own Devices
• Young Offender
• Vampires
• You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk
• Was It Worth It?
• Se A Vida É (That's the Way Life Is)
• I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More
• Always on My Mind
• Shameless
• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
• It's a Sin
• It's Alright
• Footsteps
• Go West
  … plus videos for:
• I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More
• New York City Boy
• You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk
• For Your Own Good

Note: Links to Amazon for DVDs are to the U.S. Amazon site and Region 1 versions only.

Perhaps the most hotly anticipated Pet Shop Boys video release since Videography: a nearly—yes, only nearly—complete collection of their music videos in DVD format with newly remastered sound. Although it hasn't yet been officially released in the United States, editions from certain other countries (such as Canada, Mexico, and Argentina) will play on U.S. DVD players and are somewhat readily available. The PopArt DVD boasts a number of videos previously unavailable in general distribution, such as "Was It Worth It?" "Paninaro '95," "Single-Bilingual," and "A Red Letter Day," among others. It also features extensive audio commentary by Chris and Neil themselves, together with their "house chronocler," Chris Heath. Perhaps the biggest disappointments are that it doesn't include "Absolutely Fabulous" (the Boys would have had to license it from the Comic Relief organization, which owns the rights), "Miracles," and "Flamboyant" (the latter two of which were completed too late for inclusion). Still, it's an absolute treasure for the fans!

• Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) (original version)
• West End Girls
• Love Comes Quickly
• Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) (second version)
• Suburbia
• Paninaro
• It’s a Sin
• What Have I Done to Deserve This?
• Rent
• Always on My Mind
• Heart
• Domino Dancing
• Left to My Own Devices
• It’s Alright
• So Hard
• Being Boring
• How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)
• Jealousy
• DJ Culture
• Was It Worth It?
• Can You Forgive Her?
• Go West
• I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing
• Liberation
• Yesterday, When I Was Mad
• Paninaro ’95
• Before
• Se A Vida É (That’s the Way Life Is)
• Single-Bilingual
• A Red Letter Day
• Somewhere
• I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More
• New York City Boy
• You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk
• Home and Dry
• I Get Along/E-mail
• London
• Domino Dancing (Extended version)
• So Hard (Extended version)
• Go West (Extended version)

Note: Links to Amazon for DVDs are to the U.S. Amazon site and Region 1 versions only.

This is the full-length, 142-minute version of the television documentary that first aired in greatly truncated form on U.K. Channel 4 on May 24, 2006. As the title indicates, it's a "video biography" of the Pet Shop Boys, with the running narrative and commentary provided by Neil and Chris themselves as well as a number of guests, including Robbie Williams, Trevor Horn, Bruce Weber, and this site's webmaster, among others. The DVD release includes not only a lot of footage not included in the original broadcast, but also more than 30 minutes of extremely attractive bonus features: the post-PopArt music videos, from "Miracles" to "Numb," as well as rare footage from several PSB live TV appearances through the years. Released in the U.K. in late October, there are no current plans to release this DVD in the United States, but NTSC editions that will play on U.S. DVD players have been issued in other countries, such as Canada. Whatever the case, it's essential viewing for all PSB fans—and I'd say that even if I didn't appear in it.

• A Life in Pop (the full-length documentary)
• Miracles
• Flamboyant*
• I'm with Stupid
• Minimal
• Numb
• West End Girls (live on Hits Des Clubs)
• What Have I Done To Deserve This (live at the 1988 Brit Awards)
• Go West (live at the 1994 Brit Awards)

*Caveat emptor: Some editions (such as the Australian PAL and Canadian NTSC) do not include the "Flamboyant" video, whereas others (such as the U.K. PAL and Japanese/Hong Kong NTSC) do include it—or at least some of them do: there are indications that, though it was included in the original issue, it was deleted from subsequent pressings. Further complicating matters is the fact that, even for that those that do include it, "Flamboyant" is not listed anywhere on the packaging or enclosure, but rather appears only on the onscreen DVD menu itself. So far there's been no official explanation or even acknowledgment of these differences.

Released in May 2007 in the U.K., Germany, and several other countries, and two months later in the United States, Cubism documents the Pet Shop Boys' Fundamental tour show, filmed at their November 14, 2006 concert in Mexico City. According to the official website, the Boys chose the title because "the ingenious staging … designed by Es Devlin revolved around a cube which formed the backdrop to the show." In addition to the concert itself—filmed in high definition and recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound—the disc features several bonus extras, including a 13-minute behind-the-scenes documentary and audio commentary with Chris, Neil, and the director, David Barnard. There are two variations on the outside slipcase packaging—one featuring a shot of Chris and the other featuring Neil—although the internal montage-style graphics are the same for all copies.

• Intro / God Willing
• Psychological
• Left to My Own Devices
• I'm with Stupid
• Suburbia
• Can You Forgive Her?
• Minimal
• Shopping
• Rent
• Dreaming of the Queen
• Heart
• Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
• Integral
• Numb
• Se A Vide É (That's the Way Life Is)
• Domino Dancing
• Flamboyant
• Home and Dry
• Always on My Mind
• Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)
• West End Girls
• The Sodom and Gomorrah Show
• So Hard
• It's a Sin
• Go West