2009-03-17

This Used To Be "This Used To Be The Future"


"This used to be the future" is a track from the bonus CD of the upcoming, new Pet Shop Boys album "Yes". The special gimmick: vocals are not only sung by Neil Tennant, but also by Chris Low and Phil Oakey from The Human League.

MARCH 23 UPDATE:
This used to be "This Used to be the Future": After the song was taken down due to our beloved copyright violation bla bla (after all there is no such thing as free promotion?!) there is now the "Ken Saint X-tended Mix", which is surprisingly good and very close to the "original" version. I wonder how long this will be up...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

PSB must drop EMI. There is no reason to pull this video from YouTube. Where else are we going to see it? It's promotion! Why would they release 'Yes' in the UK a month before the US? Don't they know that US fans will just download it from UK uploaders? They lose the first month of US revenue, and so do PSB. EMI stands for Electronic Music Idiots.

Anonymous said...

Phil Oakey's presence isn't just a vocal gimmick - I guess you missed that the Human League's original name was "The Future". The Future was typified by obviously electronic squeaks and blips, and this track is very much a tribute to that.

StellaVista said...

Thanks for your comment, Synchro.

I am aware that Phil was a member of "The Men", which was ironically "The Human League" plus session musicians.
"The Future" was actually Ware, Marsh and Adi Newton from "Clock DVA". Although one of their tracks ("Dancevision") appeared on the "Human League´s" "Holiday 80" EP.

I have to admit, though that I didn´t think of this band when I heard the song. I like the idea but I can´t hear anything in the lyrics that refers to "The Future".

A "gimmick" is IMO an extra, something that is added to increase your will to buy the product.
In this regard let´s say that the song in itself is a gimmick. I would have preferred it to be on CD one (instead of "Building a wall" and "Beautiful People" maybe?!), as I find the dubs and mixes on CD 2 rather weak.

Anonymous said...

Check out 'The Golden Hour of The Future' issued as The Future/The Human League http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Hour_of_the_Future . They did a lot more than just Dancevision. Back on the subject, yes I don't know why they take these things off youtube either as not all of us have the chance to buy the CD .. it's not even on i-tunes.

Leftdance said...

Yes is a wonderful record.

Another piece of art of pet shop boys.

Great blog ¡

i love reference`s Suburbia song