- Source: Please (Pet Shop Boys album)
Please is the debut studio album by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 24 March 1986 by Parlophone in the United Kingdom and by EMI America Records in the United States. According to the duo, the album's title was chosen so that people had to go into a record shop and say "Can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, 'Please'?". Please spawned four singles: "West End Girls", "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)", "Suburbia", and "Love Comes Quickly"; "West End Girls" reached number one in both the UK and the US.
Background and composition
Most of the tracks on Please had been demoed with American producer Bobby Orlando in 1984, taking influences from Italian disco, Orlando's lo-fi electronic dance music and the bourgeoning American rap scene. A version of "West End Girls" produced by Orlando had been released as an unsuccessful single that year. For their debut album Pet Shop Boys re-worked the songs in a slightly slower tempo with producer Stephen Hague (after their record company initially had suggested that they should work with producers Stock Aitken Waterman). Lyrically, the songs were inspired by the duo's life in London at the time, with lyricist Neil Tennant assuming different characters and occasionally writing satirical lyrics, such as the song "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)".
Releases
Please was re-released on 4 June 2001 (as were most of the duo's studio albums up to that point) as Please: Further Listening 1984–1986. The re-released version was not only digitally remastered but came with a second disc of B-sides and previously unreleased material from around the time of the album's original release. Yet another re-release followed on 9 February 2009, under the title of Please: Remastered. This version contains only the 11 tracks on the original. With the 2009 re-release, the 2001 two-disc re-release was discontinued. On 2 March 2018 a newly remastered edition of Please: Further Listening 1984–1986 was released, with the same contents as the 2001 edition.
"Suburbia" was dramatically remixed for the single release.
"Violence" was later re-recorded by the Pet Shop Boys for a charity concert at The Haçienda nightclub in 1992. This version, known as the 'Haçienda version', was released as one of the B-sides to "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" and was then made available on the B-sides album Alternative and on Very: Further Listening 1992-1994.
The Pet Shop Boys later sampled the Please version of "Love Comes Quickly" for their song "Somebody Else's Business", which appeared on the Disco 3 album.
"Tonight Is Forever" was later covered by Liza Minnelli on the Pet Shop Boys-produced album Results.
Critical reception
Please has received critical acclaim. Upon its release in March 1986, Smash Hits reviewer Chris Heath gave the album a 9 out of 10 rating describing the content as "ten thoroughly catchy songs".
Writing in 1986 for Billboard's "Dance Trax" column, Brian Chin described the album as an "amusingly complete compendium of recent dance music styles. It should be a long-running hit for clubs if the remixes keep coming."
Retrospectively, in a 2009 review for the BBC, Ian Wade wrote: "Please really hasn't dated at all and should be the textbook example of how brilliant a pop debut could be."
Track listing
= Notes
=On LP and cassette copies, "Opportunities" (Reprise) is sequenced as a hidden track at the end of side A, acting as the outro to "Suburbia".
Track 4 on the Further Listening 1984–1986 bonus disc is a previously unreleased mix, different from the actual 12" version released in 1985 (dance mix) and which reappeared in 1986 (original dance mix).
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Please.
= Pet Shop Boys
=Chris Lowe – sequencer, synthesizer, keyboards, samples, programmer, drum programmer (track 3, 4, 7–9, 11), piano (track 3), electric piano (track 6), lead vocals (track 13)
Neil Tennant – vocals, keyboards
= Additional musicians
=Stephen Hague – keyboards, programmer
Andy Mackay – saxophone (track 4)
Helena Springs – additional vocals (tracks 2, 8)
Ron Dean Miller – guitar (track 11)
Gary Barnacle – saxophone (track 5) (uncredited)
= Technical
=Stephen Hague – production
David Jacob – engineering
J. J. Jeczalik – production (original recording) (track 3)
Nicholas Froome – production (original recording) (track 3)
Ron Dean Miller – New York overdubs (track 3); production (original recording) (track 11)
Pet Shop Boys – production (original recording) (track 9)
Blue Weaver – production (original recording) (track 9)
= Artwork
=Eric Watson – cover photograph, inner sleeve photographs
Paul Rider, John Stoddart, Brian Aris, Joe Shutter, Ian Hooton, Chris Burscough – inner sleeve photographs
Mark Farrow – sleeve design
Pet Shop Boys – sleeve design
Charts
Certifications and sales
Notes
References
= Bibliography
=External links
Soto, Alfred (11 May 2005). "Pet Shop Boys – Please – On Second Thought". Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012.
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