Please (album)

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Please

Studio album by Pet Shop Boys
Released	March 24, 1986
Recorded	1984-1985
Genre	Synthpop
Length	44:02
Label	EMI Manhattan
Producer(s)	Stephen Hague
All Music Guide link
Pet Shop Boys chronology
	Please (1986)	Disco (1986)

Please is the first album by the UK electronic music group Pet Shop Boys, released in 1986. 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?".

Hits from Please include "West End Girls", "Opportunities (Let's make lots of money)", and "Love comes quickly". "West End Girls" was a hit in both the UK and the United States.

1 Overview
2 Track listing
- 2.1 Further Listening 1984-1986
3 Singles
4 Personnel
5 External link

[edit] Overview

Please is musically simpler than, but lyrically just as rich as, Pet Shop Boys' later work. The instrumentals are comparable to other techno pop of this period. As with many early PSB albums, the lyrics were considered androgynous, the stories they contain being equally applicable to gay and heterosexual relationships. Tennant, in particular, enjoyed this ambiguity and refused to comment on his own sexuality until he came out before 1993's Very hit the charts.

The tiny cover photograph enclosed by a sea of white has been seen by some design obervers as a reaction to the traditional album cover. With the new CD cases of the time being necessarily smaller than designs seen on 12" albums, the passport-sized photograph is far removed from standard cover artwork. The actual size of the image is the same size as a 35mm photographic negative.

"Two Divided by Zero" samples a SHARP "talking" calculator from the 1980's.

Please was rereleased in 2001 (as were most of the group's albums up to that point) as Please/Further Listening 1984-1986. The rereleased 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.

"Suburbia" was dramatically remixed for the single release.

"Violence" was later rerecorded by the Pet Shop Boys for a charity concert at the Hacienda nightclub in the early 1990s. This version, known as the 'Hacienda 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 the 2001 2-disc rerelease of the Very.

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 Minelli on the Pet Shop Boys-produced album Results.

[edit] Track listing

"Two divided by zero"
"West End girls"
"Opportunities (Let's make lots of money)"
"Love comes quickly"
"Suburbia"
"Opportunities (reprise)"
"Tonight is forever"
"Violence"
"I want a lover"
"Later tonight"
"Why don't we live together?"

[edit] Further Listening 1984-1986

"A man could get arrested" (Twelve-inch b-side)
"Opportunities (Let's make lots of money)" (Full length original seven-Inch version)
"In the night"
"Opportunities (Let's make lots of money)" (Original twelve-inch mix)
"Why don't we live together?" (Original New York mix)
"West End girls" (Dance Mix)
"A man could get arrested" (Seven-inch b-side)
"Love comes quickly" (Dance mix)
"That's my impression" (Disco mix)
"Was that what it was?"
"Suburbia" (The Full Horror)
"Jack the lad"
"Paninaro" (Italian remix)

[edit] Singles

[edit] Personnel

Neil Tennant
Chris Lowe

Guest musicians

Andy Mackay - Saxophone on track 4
Helena Springs - Additional vocals on tracks 2 & 8
Stephen Hague - Keyboards and programming (uncredited)
Ron Dean Miller - Original production and guitar (uncredited) on track 11 and "New York overdubs" on track 3
Blue Weaver - Original production on track 9
J.J. Jeczalik & Nicholas Froome - Original production on track 3