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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class

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Glastonbury was a big hit this year, the first festival since COVID.

142,000 in attendance. As usual it is the premier rock festival in the world.

Always a good time, with major headliners like Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamarr, Lorde, Years and Years, Fleetwood Mac, U2, Billie Eilish, Pet Shop Boys, Diana Ross and many, many more. Two stuck out the most and stole the show:

Paul McCartney: Anytime one can see Paul McCartney one does it! And he delivers! What can one say as this may be his last appearance. His two hours were a tour de force of his greatest hits along with very soulful renditions of Beatles' standards.

Pet Shop Boys: And the least rock festival group ever, the Pet Shop Boys, stole Kendrick Lamarr's thunder, and the show garnering the larger crowd and universal praise for the best set of the festival as their televised performance breaks BBC4's ratings record. Their greatest hits compilation shot up to #3 on the iTunes Chart following the performance as Britain's best, and yet somehow underrated, duo reminds everyone, once again, that they are the greatest synth/techno/dance/pop group ever.


Enjoy the full two-hour Paul McCartney concert on the Main Stage (audio only):



And the incredible full set as the Pet Shop Boys steal Glastonbury once again (they stole it in 2010):

 
Pet Shop Boys would be in already if they were an American group. Plenty of memorable pop songs that still sound fresh. They are synth-driven and bands like that are still breaking through.

Going back to Kraftwerk, who I occasionally talked up on this thread. Just listen to this album while working at your desk today:


In 1981 they saw computers becoming central to society and made an album about it... and it's still amazing. Probably the most important synth album of all time.
 
Randolphkeys said:
Pet Shop Boys would be in already if they were an American group. Plenty of memorable pop songs that still sound fresh. They are synth-driven and bands like that are still breaking through.

Going back to Kraftwerk, who I occasionally talked up on this thread. Just listen to this album while working at your desk today:


In 1981 they saw computers becoming central to society and made an album about it... and it's still amazing. Probably the most important synth album of all time.
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The irony is PSB would refuse the honor. They are contrarian.

Their new stuff is as good as the old.

2013's Electric is one of the best synth/techno/dance/ albums of the past decade.

From start to finish it is a gem. Worth a listen all the way through. Every song is great. Their cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Last to Die" is of particular interest to rock fans.



Kraftwerk is required listening for every human.
 
Sebastian said:
The irony is PSB would refuse the honor. They are contrarian.

Their new stuff is as good as the old.

2013's Electric is one of the best synth/techno/dance/ albums of the past decade.

From start to finish it is a gem. Worth a listen all the way through. Every song is great. Their cover of Bruce Springsteen's "The Last to Die" is of particular interest to rock fans.



Kraftwerk is required listening for every human.
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Never was the biggest Pet Shop Boys fan, but was a huge Duran Duran fan who imo is the exact same genre, go figure, lol
 
Lee said:
Never was the biggest Pet Shop Boys fan, but was a huge Duran Duran fan who imo is the exact same genre, go figure, lol
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PSB and Duran Duran had overlap in the mid-80s, but PSB moved on to more of a techno/dance oeuvre in the 90s and Duran Duran went more rock.

PSB are mostly known for their 80s stuff in the US, but they remained a top draw and chart presence in most of the rest of the world into the present.

They had five Top 10 hits in the US between 1986-1988, but in the UK they've had 22 along with 44 Top 40 up until the 2010s.

Within the music industry they are the doyens of electro-pop and the master of the remix. The present generation of musicians from Lady Gaga to The Weeknd are directly influenced by them (there is a really good BRIT Award medley with PSB featuring Lady Gaga and Brandon Flowers). They've also helped produce a ton of successful music for a number of artists, most notably resurrecting 60s diva Dusty Springfield's career.

The American music market used to be very wild. It is a lot more settled in the UK, musical tastes change but they just don't drop entire genres they way the US does. As it turns out, we've boomeranged and 80s synth music is popular again. There was an All-State commercial featuring PSB's "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" and the song re-charted again, including at #1 on a couple Billboard Charts, after a gap of 35 years.

Over the past decade they have gone almost exclusively electro-dance and have remained very contemporary.
 
Sebastian said:
PSB and Duran Duran had overlap in the mid-80s, but PSB moved on to more of a techno/dance oeuvre in the 90s and Duran Duran went more rock.

PSB are mostly known for their 80s stuff in the US, but they remained a top draw and chart presence in most of the rest of the world into the present.

They had five Top 10 hits in the US between 1986-1988, but in the UK they've had 22 along with 44 Top 40 up until the 2010s.

Within the music industry they are the doyens of electro-pop and the master of the remix. The present generation of musicians from Lady Gaga to The Weeknd are directly influenced by them (there is a really good BRIT Award medley with PSB featuring Lady Gaga and Brandon Flowers). They've also helped produce a ton of successful music for a number of artists, most notably resurrecting 60s diva Dusty Springfield's career.

The American music market used to be very wild. It is a lot more settled in the UK, musical tastes change but they just don't drop entire genres they way the US does. As it turns out, we've boomeranged and 80s synth music is popular again. There was an All-State commercial featuring PSB's "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" and the song re-charted again, including at #1 on a couple Billboard Charts, after a gap of 35 years.

Over the past decade they have gone almost exclusively electro-dance and have remained very contemporary.
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When Duran Duran became a trio by the 90's the for sure went more dance. in 1993 when they had their resurgence with come undone and ordinary world, I think those were very dance oriented songs.

I cant speak to PSB, not saying they didnt go more electric, which is not my taste, but to say Duran Duran didnt go more dance I think is false, they even had comercial success with their more dance type music, This doesnt include Biggies' sampling of Notorious in the 90's which was straight fire imo, but i am a huge Biggie fan, through in some classic Duran Duran and i was hooked from the get go, lol.
 
I was a middle school kid when Pet Shop Boys covered Willie Nelson's You Are Always on my Mind and top 40 radio stations played it quite a bit. Loved it. Had no frame of reference that Willie wrote it or that Elvis made it famous... but I've been a Pet Shop Boys fan since 1987 because of it.
 
Lee said:
When Duran Duran became a trio by the 90's the for sure went more dance. in 1993 when they had their resurgence with come undone and ordinary world, I think those were very dance oriented songs.

I cant speak to PSB, not saying they didnt go more electric, which is not my taste, but to say Duran Duran didnt go more dance I think is false, they even had comercial success with their more dance type music, This doesnt include Biggies' sampling of Notorious in the 90's which was straight fire imo, but i am a huge Biggie fan, through in some classic Duran Duran and i was hooked from the get go, lol.
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You could be right, I don't follow Duran Duran much.

I know they're another group that fell off in the US a bit, but then made a comeback but stayed big most everywhere else.

Now that I think about it Electric Barbarella was a big dance hit.
 
Randolphkeys said:
I was a middle school kid when Pet Shop Boys covered Willie Nelson's You Are Always on my Mind and top 40 radio stations played it quite a bit. Loved it. Had no frame of reference that Willie wrote it or that Elvis made it famous... but I've been a Pet Shop Boys fan since 1987 because of it.
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I think that particular cover has been routinely ranked as the greatest cover of all time.

PSB has done incredibly well with covers and they do so by completely deconstructing a song and rebuilding it into a fantastically lush synth-pop anthem.

One of their other signature songs is "Go West," which was a ghastly disco track by the Village People with little chart success. The PSB version is far, far better and one of the best charting songs of the 90s in Britain and Europe. Many say its their best song. It is a fantastic song:



PSB are noted as disliking most rock, and took the classic U2 song "Where the Streets Have no Name" and rebuilt it in conjunction with "I've Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," into a foot-stomping techno-pop song as a commentary on how Rock music is lionized but is actually no different in structure from dance or pop. And to U2's annoyance, the PSB version charted a bit higher in the UK than the original. Many love it, some loathe it:


Bono remarked on the song: "What have we done to deserve this?"*
 
Arketebel said:
Kate Bush is a lock now. Too bad this didn't happen a few months ago.

Stranger Things Sends Kate Bush's 1985 Song 'Running Up That Hill' to No. 1 on iTunes Chart

www.msn.com
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I was pimping her pretty hard when she was nominated. She's now both the youngest and the oldest female to have a song that she wrote and performed go to No. 1 in the UK - Wuthering Heights in 1978, and Running Up That Hill in 2022.

Her music deserves to get all this exposure it's getting, and I hope those clowns at the HOF remember her for next year.
 
Randolphkeys said:
I was a middle school kid when Pet Shop Boys covered Willie Nelson's You Are Always on my Mind and top 40 radio stations played it quite a bit. Loved it. Had no frame of reference that Willie wrote it or that Elvis made it famous... but I've been a Pet Shop Boys fan since 1987 because of it.
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This came across my YouTube feed today.

Enjoy!

 
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