Release (Pet Shop Boys album)

Untitled

Release is the twelfth album, the eighth of entirely new music, by the UK electronic music duo Pet Shop Boys. It was first released in 2002.

Release has been the least commercially successful of all Pet Shop Boys albums to date, though still managed to sell 800,000 copies worldwide. On its first release, a limited run of metallic effect embossed sleeves were available in a choice of four colours: grey, blue, pink or red. In the USA, this limited run also came with a bonus CD including remixes and new tracks, all of which had already been released in Europe on singles.

The album marked a significant departure from previous work, being guitar and piano-driven with little evidence of sythesisers present. After writing and producing new material for their 2001 stage musical Closer to Heaven, Pet Shop Boys decided that they needed to change direction slightly to get away from the extravagant dance/pop music that was evident in the musical. Initially, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe thought that this change in direction could be more towards a hip-hop influence, and they even worked with an associate of Dr. Dre (the track "E-mail" was begun during these sessions). However the emerging material was emotional and guitar-influenced. They worked with Michael Brauer (who had previously worked with artists such as Coldplay) and Johnny Marr.

The directors for all three music videos for the album's singles are photographers by trade: Wolfgang Tillmans directed "Home and dry", Bruce Weber directed "I get along" (following his previous work on the "Being boring" and "Se a vida é" videos), and Martin Parr directed "London". The Tillmans video, consisting almost entirely of footage of mice filmed at Tottenham Court Road tube station in the London Underground, is considered to have significantly undermined the commercial potential of the lead single, due to being deemed nearly unplayable by MTV and other music video channels.

Perhaps partly because of the modest commercial success of this album, and perhaps partly because of the habit of distancing themselves musically from their most recent work, Tennant and Lowe have since returned to their dance roots. One year after the release of Release, Pet Shop Boys released Disco 3 which included remixes of some of the songs from Release along with new material that they were working on at the time of writing/producing material for Release.

Track listing

Release

1. "Home and dry"
2. "I get along"
3. "Birthday boy"
4. "London"
5. "E-mail"
6. "The Samurai in autumn"
7. "Love is a catastrophe"
8. "Here"
9. "The night I fell in love"
10. "You choose"

USA Bonus CD

1. "Home and dry" (Ambient mix)
2. "Sexy northerner"
3. "Always"
4. "Closer to heaven" (Slow version)
5. "Nightlife"
6. "Friendly fire"
7. "Break 4 love" (with Peter Rauhofer)
8. "Home and dry" (Blank & Jones mix)

Personnel

• Neil Tennant - Vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Chris Lowe - Keyboards, drum programming, additional vocals on track 1

Guest musicians

• Pete Gleadall - Programming and engineering on all tracks except 4
• Johnny Marr - Guitar on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 & 10
• Jodie Lindscott - Percussion on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 & 10
• Steve Walters - Bass guitar on tracks 2, 3 & 9
• Chris Zippel - Keyboards on track 4
• "Little Mike" - Guitar & Bass on track 4

UK Chart Run

U.K. Albums Chart
Week	01	02	03	04	05
Position	7	32	49	61	120