Send "Pet Shop Boys " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Let's make lots of money!Che Guevara and Debussy would both have major problems with Ultimate Pet Shop Boys—and not just because they already shelled out for the Pop Art compilation back in 2006. Che would be upset by the absence of the Boys’ two greatest capitalist satires, “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)” and “Rent”. (Don’t mess with Che when he’s upset.) Debussy would miss the Tchaikovsky-sampling “All Over the World” and the kept-woman evocation “Rent”. As for everybody else: did I mention this CD doesn’t include “Rent”? What have we done to deserve this? Now, if you shell out a not-unreasonable sum of money for the Special Edition, which includes two discs of live performances, including a complete set from Glastonbury earlier this year, you’ll get all of the above songs and plenty of others you may or may not wanna hear. Look, there’s “Rent” on Top of the Pops! Crazy smoke machine; it really gets you inside the febrile mind of the kept woman. Of course, if you’re reading this review, you probably already own “Rent”, not to mention “Opportunities”. If not, go buy Pop Art. (The first Pet Shop Boys compilation, Discography, shouldn’t be considered in light of its rash decision to exclude “Go West”, the Boys’ most heartrending four minutes of bliss—said bliss, after all, is perpetually in the future, somewhere else—ostensibly because it “hadn’t been recorded yet” or something.) As a single disc compilation, Ultimate lives up to that audacious adjective worse than any album in recorded history, with the possible exception of Radio Disney Ultimate Jams, which rashly excluded the A*Teens’ “Halfway Around the World”. Se a vida é....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| The quality of The Pet Shop Boys' best moments in unquestionable. Having cottoned on to the potential of dance music fairly early, they reinvigorated British pop with a string of flamboyant singles which counter-intuitively combined gaudy keyboard riffs with pained, sometimes maudlin vocals and lyrics. What can be called into question, however, is the necessity of yet another compilation of their better moments, especially one as lacklustre as Ultimate Pet Shop Boys. The standard edition of this album collects some, but by no means all, of the band's best moments in chronological order. Most of the biggest hits are here: 'West End Girls', 'Heart', 'Suburbia', 'It's A Sin', and so on. Children of the eighties who grew up singing along to Neil Tennant's tales of small-town boredom and doomed romance will get a cheap thrill from hearing so many stellar pop songs back-to-back. There are many iconic moments here, from the dogs barking at the start of 'Suburbia' to the euphoric keyboard riff which punctuates Tennant's rueful and romantic vocal performance during their cover of 'Always On My Mind'. However, there also iconic moments missing. The standard edition Ultimate Pet Shop Boys does not include 'Rent', or 'A Red Letter Day', or 'Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)', or a number of their other better-known songs. It's difficult to understand why. If songs like 'A Red Letter Day' have been excluded because this compilation is meant to be a streamlined collection of their biggest hits, then why have weaker and relatively obscure later songs like 'New York City Boy', 'Miracles', and the new single 'Together' been included? If the reason for including these songs at the expense of their earlier material is to give a broad overview of their career, then why do superior later tracks like 'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk' not make an appearance? If 'Rent' has been excluded on the basis that it's not as good as any of the songs here, then I'd venture to suggest that whichever Parlophone administrative assistant made the decision invest in some cotton buds....full text |
| Bbc |
| Well, of course an outfit that have been in the process of releasing worldwide chart-topping amazement for a quarter of a century have released a Best Of before (Discography in 1991, and there was the PopArt double disc delight in 2003), but there are numerous reasons to justify the existence of Ultimate. Firstly, it is 25 years since West End Girls topped the chart. Secondly, Discography is very wonderful, but there’s been 20 years since that landmark. And thirdly, the addition of a (not in the slightest bit terrible) DVD which features highlights from their Top of the Pops, Wogan and Old Grey Whistle Test performances, and their star turn at Glastonbury this year, is reason enough to own these tunes again. With 18 hits literally spanning their career, and a brand new one – the rather marvellous rave o’clock synths of Together – there have no doubt been online unrest and actual riots at the tunes missed out from their 40-plus array of singles. Questions have been raised over the omissions of Opportunities and Rent for starters, but there have to be casualties in situations like these. There’s no messing with the quality of tunes such as It’s a Sin, Being Boring and Left To My Own Devices from the group’s imperial phase in the late 1980s, and only an idiot would dispute that What Have I Done To Deserve This? isn’t anything but a proper modern classic....full text |
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