Pet Shop Boys - Remix (1987)

I recently discovered a superb 12-minute fan-made remix of the Pet Shop Boys 'Rent' online, and so it didn't take long before I started to wonder if any of their other songs had been given the remix treatment and posted online, and not surprisingly there are literally hundreds of them out there. Their songs seem to be the perfect inspiration for fans to go to town and remix them to within an inch of their lives, from their very earliest recordings right through to some of their most recent work, and you can easily find trance, techno and dance remixes of their songs without too much effort. Undoubtedly my favourite period of theirs was the late 80's, where they produced an outstanding run of hit singles from 1985 to 1989, and so a quick trawl through the net uncovered remixes of six of my favourite tracks, which I then mixed together into one 50-minute hit-filled megamix of the best of the Pet Shop Boys. 

Track listing

01 Rent (remix by Unreleased Versions)

02 Suburbia (remix by gulymix)

03 It's A Sin (remix by themotownboy1)

04 West End Girls (remix by Dinei Silva Master Mix)

05 Always On My Mind (remix by Ramsey Hagar)

06 Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money) (remix by Unreleased Versions)

Johnny Marr - ...and on guitar (2010)

John Martin Maher (aka Johnny Marr) was born on 31 October 1963, and originally had aspirations to become a professional footballer, being approached by Nottingham Forest, and securing trials with Manchester City. At the age of 13, Marr's family moved him to a new neighbourhood in Manchester where he met up with a bunch of guitar players which changed his life, including The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy, who Marr would listen to rehearsing across the street from his new house. He formed his first band at 13 with Andy Rourke and Kevin Williams, and The Paris Valentinos performed at a Jubilee party in Benchill in June 1977, playing Rolling Stones and Thin Lizzy covers. In 1979 he re-united with Rourke in White Dice, who won a demo-tape competition organised by the NME, for which the prize was an audition with F-Beat Records, although it didn't result in a record deal. In October 1980, Marr enrolled at Wythenshawe College, and after White Dice dissolved in 1981, he and Rourke formed a funk band, Freak Party, with Simon Wolstencroft on drums. By early 1982 Freak Party had fizzled out, being unable to find a vocalist, so Marr approached Rob Allman, singer in White Dice, who suggested Steven Morrissey, a singer with the short-lived punk band the Nosebleeds. Marr approached a mutual friend asking to be introduced and they visited Morrissey at his house in Kings Road, Stretford in May 1981. With the line-up of The Smiths completed with he addition of Mike Joyce on drums, the band signed to Rough Trade Records and released their first single 'Hand In Glove' in 1983. 

By February 1984, the band's fanbase was sufficiently large to launch the band's long-awaited eponymous debut album to number two in the UK chart. Early in 1985, the band released their second album 'Meat Is Murder', which was more strident and political than its predecessor, becoming the band's only album (barring compilations) to reach number one in the UK charts. In 1986 the band released 'The Queen Is Dead', an album which has consistently topped polls of the greatest albums ever made, but despite their continued success, personal differences within the band, including the increasingly strained relationship between Morrissey and Marr, saw them on the verge of splitting. In July 1987, Marr left the group, and auditions to find a replacement for him proved fruitless. By the time 'Strangeways, Here We Come' was released in September, the band had split. The breakdown in the relationship has been primarily attributed to Morrissey's becoming annoyed by Marr's work with other artists, and this collection shows that he did offer his services to a number of artists between 1984 and 2010, although seemingly not that many while he was still a member of The Smiths. In August 1987, he was very briefly an official member of the Pretenders, touring with the band and appearing on the single 'Windows Of The World', and after leaving The Pretenders he recorded and toured with The The from 1988 to 1994, recording two albums with the group. He simultaneously formed Electronic with New Order's Bernard Sumner, releasing three albums during the 90's, and in 1992 he recorded a cover version of Ennio Morricone's 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' with Billy Duffy for the NME compilation 'Ruby Trax'. He's also worked as a session musician and writing collaborator for artists including Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Tom Jones, Kirsty MacColl, Black Grape, Talking Heads, and Beck, and this double disc set shows the wide variety of artists who have felt that having Marr added to their music would make it just that little bit special.  

Track listing

Disc One
01 Hand In Glove (single by Sandie Shaw 1984)
02 Greetings To The New Brunette (single by Billy Bragg 1986)
03 Windows Of The World (single by The Pretenders 1988)
04 (Nothing But) Flowers (from 'Naked' by Talking Heads 1988)
05 Still Feel The Rain (single by Stex 1990)
06 This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave (from 'Behaviour' by Pet Shop Boys 1990)
07 Walking Down Madison (from 'Electric Landlady' by Kirsty MacColl 1991)
08 This Is Your Life (from 'Ripe' by Banderas 1991)
09 The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (from the 'Ruby Trax' compilation 1992)
09 Dogs Of Lust (single by The The 1993)
10 Rays Of The Rising Sun (single by Denise Johnson 1994)

Disc Two
01 Fat Neck (single by Black Grape 1996)
02 Rhythm And Blues (from 'Fresco' by M People 1997)
03 Lust For Life (from 'Reload' by Tom Jones 1999)
04 Milk And Honey (from 'Midnite Vultures' by Beck 1999)
05 Fool's Mate (from 'Crimson Tide' by Bert Jansch 2000)  
06 (Probably) All In The Mind (from 'Heathen Chemistry' by Oasis 2002)
07 Even A Child (from 'Time On Earth' by Crowded House 2007)
08 Enough Of Me (from 'The Empyrean' by John Frusciante 2009) 
09 The Whale Song (from 'No One's First, And You're Next' by Modest Mouse 2009)
10 Ordinary Millionaire (from 'Propellor Time' by Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 2010) 

Thanks to the Anonymous comment just before Christmas for suggesting this one.

Pet Shop Boys - Seize The Opportunity (1983)

While Neil Tennant was working for ITV Books (shortly before starting his tenure at Smash Hits) and Chris Lowe had an apprenticeship in architecture, they struck up a conversation about musicians and synthesizers in a London hi-fi shop on King's Road in 1981. After going their separate ways from the hi-fi shop, they kept in touch and soon became friends and musical collaborators, writing songs together in Tennant's apartment on his synthesizer. Although in general they had different musical tastes, they found they shared a passion for Euro-disco and hi-NRG music, and a fondness in particular for the American dance producer Bobby 'O' Orlando. In 1982 they made their first demo tape in a studio they rented for £6 per hour, and deciding that their duo needed a name, they tentatively decided to call themselves West End. In the summer of 1983, Smash Hits assigned Tennant the task of traveling to New York City to review a Police concert and to interview Sting. As it happened, the building in which he was scheduled to meet Sting was the same building in which Bobby O had his offices, so he arranged to meet Bobby O, which was not a particularly difficult thing to do considering his credentials as a British pop music journalist. 
Tennant and Bobby O wound up having lunch together, and during the course of their conversation, Tennant mentioned that he was a member of a songwriting duo interested in making music somewhat influenced by Bobby O himself. The producer immediately agreed to get involved, without having heard a single song or demo tape, so Tennant returned to London to file his articles with Smash Hits, and a few weeks later he was back in New York, this time accompanied by Lowe, and with Bobby O producing they recorded several of their newer songs, including 'West End Girls', 'Opportunities', and 'One More Chance'. It was also apparently around this time that Tennant and Lowe decided to change the name of their duo to Pet Shop Boys. Although these initial recordings with Bobby O achieved only limited success, it was enough to get the band noticed, and two years later a re-arrangement and re-recording of 'West End Girls' launched their career. Only a few of the Bobby O recordings ever made it to official release, as b-sides to early singles, although most of the others were eventually re-recorded for the 'Please' and 'Actually' albums. Some of the songs on the bootleg of these sessions have since been proved to have been recorded the previous year at Ray Robert's London studio, and so this album consists of just the Bobby O demos, including the extremely rare 'Pet Shops Boys' song, which I don't believe has ever been included on any of their anthology releases.  

Track listing

01 West End Girls
02 Pet Shop Boys
03 Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)
04 I Get Excited
05 One More Chance
06 Rent
07 Two Divided By Zero 
08 A Man Could Get Arrested
09 I Want A Lover
10 Later Tonight
11 That's My Impression
12 It's A Sin