When running the review of the latest Pet Shop Boys album in the last two posts, there was a lot of commenter input on the albums that I missed after 1993 . though I have the 2002, 2006, and 2024 releases. That got me thinking…maybe I should have a reader ranking post where everyone can rank the PSB studio album canon to their heart’s content? So here’s the ground rules:
- Studio albums only
- No live recordings
- No “DISCO” releases
- No B-Side compilations
- No remix compilations
- In fact, no compilations at all
We just want the albums that have new material that adds to their body of work. So that includes, the “Relentless” album of six songs [and five instrumentals] that added to their total song count with tracks that were on albums.
The ranking mechanism is easy: 1-5 stars. Zero doesn’t enter into it, so let’s all just move on. I’ve started it out with my choices for the ones I have. Don’t worry about ranking everything; just worry about what you can give an honest opinion on. from that. This is the first time I’ve used this mechanism on the blog, so apologies if it doesn’t all work out exactly as I intended at first. If it’s not working I’ll try to fix things but could just pull the plug owing to scant free time.
PLEASE | 1986
ACTUALLY | 1987
INTROSPECTIVE | 1988
BEHAVIOUR | 1990
VERY | 1993
RELENTLESS | 1993
BILINGUAL | 1996
NIGHTLIFE | 1999
RELEASE | 2002
FUNDAMENTAL | 2006
YES | 2009
ELYSIUM | 2012
ELECTRIC | 2013
SUPER | 2016
HOTSPOT | 2020
NONETHELESS | 2024
Feel free to add commentary as we develop mutual consensus via the ranking process.
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Post-Punk Monk 
I did my ranking by, not the music, but the album cover art.
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snewzk – Welcome to the comments! As a graphic designer, that’s a valid way to rock it. My favorite one was “Actually.” The chance element of Neil yawning made it for me.
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that was my top vote as well!
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My wife won a fantasy football pool once by ranking the teams based on where she would want to go on vacation.
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Tim – This is not at test and there are no wrong answers!
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“Please” will always be my favorite based on how much I liked it when it came out (and still do). In fact, you could make a hits collection from everything else and “Please” would still come out on top! That; however, is not intended to take anything away from their fantastic discography, only to stress how much I enjoy “Please.”
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I can’t rank these but always enjoy your articles.
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My favourite albums are Please, Actually and Very. I’ve also got a soft spot for Yes. I just didn’t get Electric at all. Too many average tracks for me.
It’s great that they are still releasing decent albums so late into their career. I will continue to buy their releases as long as they want to put them out there.
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AndyB – Since I saw them in 2014, I actually tried to buy “Electric” beforehand but it was nowhere in sight.
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That’s crazy Monk. You would think all PSB albums would be easy to source.
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AndyB – Hah!! Not in Reagan’s America! Over here PSB stopped having hits once the videos became too queer. Their last big hit here was “Always On My Mind.” That’s why I saw the new CD last month and pounced on it.
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That was very naive of me Monk. I forgot that the PSBs haven’t been mainstream in the states for so long.
Even though the hit singles dried up in the late noughties in the UK their albums and tours still do well.
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The run from Please to Very is peerless. After that it’s much of a muchness. I do like some parts of Bi- Lingual but can’t remember that much about some of the songs (looking at a tracklist).
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I’ve noticed the ratings haven’t changed much as the number of votes go up. I wonder if seeing the score biases the vote. Super is overrated here by at least three stars.
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Tim – Seeing the score shouldn’t bias the vote but you may have a valid theory there. Online polling would tend to magnify bias at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Anyone who thought an album was a blah event probably wouldn’t bother to click. Making those who felt strongly about it one way or another to dig into it.
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I’m more surprised by how…..uniform….the results seem to be. TBH even a less than stellar PSB usually has a few exceptional things on it (with one exception).
I am confounded by their choice of singles over several of the last albums, there’s some really great tracks that just don’t seem to even be considered. I have no idea who does the deciding, I imagine it’s the label and them with probably some veto power held by the two of them.
Secret of Happiness is just fantastic, would love to hear a super “Being Boring” length take on that. King of Rome was another one that had strength as well as Beautiful People from Yes (I know, Vinny Vero did some work with BP). Maybe they’re gunshy of anything that doesn’t feel club friendly or club mixable after Winner.
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If Behavior & Please don’t come in 1&2, I will lose all faith in humanity.
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Well, i just spent 10 minutes clicking evrything I could and can’t find how to leave stars… But it would be 5 stars for beahaviour, 4 stars for Actually, 3 stars for Intrsopective.
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Click on the star rating you would give each album, and that is what’s recorded.
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There are no stars in the post or on my screen!
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Rupert – Fascinating, Captain. We’ve never encountered this phenomenon before…
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Beam me up!
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Check your JavaScript settings, at a guess.
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