Words & selections by Balearic Mike. “And just when you least expect it, just what you least expect …” Pet Shop Boys – Please / Disco – Parlophone Records 1986 Released 35 years ago this month, Please is one of my favourite LPs ever. Although you could say that about any of the first 4 Pet Shop Boys albums, or first 5, if you also include the completely bloody brilliant mini-LP DISCO. And you know what, I think I’m going to! I find it hard to separate the two in my head actually – see what I did there? Although released a good distance apart – Please came out in March 1986, Disco not until November – I often played them back-to-back, and still do. I think of them like 2 parts of a double LP. A bit like Soft Cell with Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret / Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing – they belong together. I don’t really need to say much about how wonderful the songs here are, as everyone should know the singles West End Girls, Love Comes Quickly, Opportunities, and Suburbia. They’re joined by songs full of the excitement of youth, about the possibilities of finding love, the thrill of going out dancing and meeting someone. The tone is set brilliantly with the opening track Two Divided By Zero, with its teenage dreams of running away to a big city and beginning to live a life less ordinary. That’s certainly how I felt as a teenager, temporarily shipwrecked in Warrington and dreaming of a city full of glamorous people and adventure. It would be two years before I would “catch the late train” as Neil sings. <iframe class='youtube-player' width='610' height='400' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/_oDhGiNKsyM?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;' sandbox='allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation'></iframe> And then Disco upped the excitement! The Italian only remix of Paninaro – only released in Italy – FFS! – The Shep Pettibone remix of Love Comes Quickly – only on the US 12” – and West End Girls, and that track from The Clothes show, which you knew was the Pet Shop Boys, but couldn’t find anywhere as it was on the original 1985 – flop – release of Opportunities! I think this might also be the first record I owned that listed the BPM of each track? I must try and check that. I love both these LPs so much that I have 2 copies of each. My originals are well played, and while Please still plays fine, the sleeves a little grubby, so I picked up a pristine US copy from a $ bin on one of my visits to the USA. It has a slightly different sleeve design, as the type is more prominent. The spare of Disco – which I REALLY needed – the record is as worn as the sleeve – came from the £ bin in King Bee Records, Chorlton. Still, I’m sure, one of the finest record shops in the country. <iframe class='youtube-player' width='610' height='400' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xJkZ4vkkXFU?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en&autohide=2&wmode=transparent' allowfullscreen='true' style='border:0;' sandbox='allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation'></iframe> Is March when all the good records get released then? Tears For Fears – The Hurting – Mercury Records 1983 Another of my all-time favourite LPs, and it was also released in March, and also has an all-white cover! Weird eh! Thirty-eight years old though! Blimey! This is the debut album from Curt and Roland, and while it didn’t become the global smash of their follow up LP, Songs From The Big Chair, which I do also really like, I much prefer this. It’s much gentler “art-pop” as opposed to the slightly more anthemic sound they got on the second record. They both obviously really like the last couple of Japan LPs – as do all right-thinking humans! – and t