I gave it a score of 4.5, a decent enough Christmas song.

I like the Christmas track, I play it a few times every year. I often hear it in supermarkets, but not on the radio.

I remembering it kicking off the RATM / Joe McElderry chart show!

#50

DON’T DROP BOMBS

 

YEAR: 1989

PEAK POSITION: 46

 

I know you carry on, behind my back

With your secretary, you'll have a heart attack

 

A collaboration that came together when the duo’s manager discovered that the label had signed Minelli and that she wanted to make a pop record, he suggested that the two acts should meet and they hit it off so well that a whole album was the result.  Minelli was already a fan particularly loving their song “Rent”, and the first release was a cover of “Losing My Mind” which stormed into the top 10, the follow up was this track which just missed the top 40. Rate wise we hit an average of 6/10- not bad going for No 50!

 

AI:  “Don’t Drop Bombs” is Liza Minnelli at her most theatrically ferocious — a Pet Shop Boys‑engineered collision of camp, confrontation, and high‑gloss late‑80s synth‑pop that turns emotional cruelty into a dance‑floor spectacle.

 

Minnelli doesn’t just sing this song — she attacks it. Her delivery is sharp, clipped, and almost exasperated, perfectly matching a lyric built on frustration and emotional exhaustion. The narrator is dealing with a partner who lies, cheats, and delights in dropping emotional “bombs” — revelations designed to destabilise her. The vocal tone is half‑plea, half‑threat, and entirely theatrical, which suits Minnelli’s stage‑honed instincts.

 

The result is a performance that feels like a showdown: Minnelli refuses to be the wounded ingénue. She’s furious, fed up, and ready to “start playing rough.” This aligns with interpretations that frame the song as a demand for honesty and an end to destructive behaviour.

 

The metaphor of “bombs” is blunt but effective. Each revelation — affairs, lies, secretaries, “other girls on your expense account” — is framed as an explosion designed to destabilise her life. The song’s meaning has been widely read as a portrait of deception, betrayal, and the emotional toll of a destructive relationship, with the narrator pleading for calm and honesty.

 

What makes the lyric compelling is its mix of bitterness and theatricality. Minnelli isn’t quietly suffering; she’s staging a musical confrontation

Highest score: 9- @gooddelta

Lowest score: 2.5 @chartjack2

The lesser of the Liza singles, I gave a 6

Oh that's way too low for 'Don't Drop Bombs' - it's such a banger of a chorus!

I preferred that to her other song, I gave it 4.

Ooh now I play this, it has aged very well, quite assertive and mildly venomous. I'd forgotten how much I liked it - though still not in the same league as If There Was Love for me.

#49

DJ CULTURE

 

YEAR: 1991

PEAK POSITION: 13

 

Consider for a minute who you are

What you'd like to change, never mind the scars

 

This track was based around Tennant’s thoughts on how DJ’s would sample songs and how that aligned with people who would also sample the attitudes of the past, or as he put it “"Political postures and social attitudes are glibly sampled from the past and the present like beats on dance records"

 

The, then, most recent example of this was the speeches of George Bush who quoted Churchill during the first Gulf War, the concept of reinvention to escape mistakes most obviously in the lyrics “Like Liz before Betty, She after Sean” referring to Elixzabeth Taylor before her visit to the Betty Ford Clinic and Madonna’s new image after her divorce from Sean Penn.

 

The song was recorded as one of two new songs for their first compilation “Discography” and the end refrain “And I My Lord, May I Say Nothing?” was famously Oscar Wilde’s words after being sentenced to hard labour at his trial for homosexuality in 1895 (a scene recreated in the promo).  It also charted as a remix by The Grid at No 40 charting separately due to regulations around the number of formats at the time.

 

AI: DJ Culture is a commentary on how fame, image, and narrative distort reality. Released in 1991 — just as superstar DJs were beginning to eclipse the music itself — the song skewers the idea that DJs (and by extension, celebrities) rewrite their own histories to appear more authentic, more tortured, more profound.

 

It’s not an attack; it’s an observation. But it’s a sharp one.

 

it’s not really about DJs. It’s about:

·        image

·        reinvention

·        self‑curation

·        the stories we tell to survive in public

In an era of social media, the song feels more relevant than ever. Everyone is a DJ now — remixing their own life.

Highest score: 9.5 @dandy* @mαngo

Lowest score: 2 @Ghoulian

'Dont Drop Bombs' the lesser fave of the two Liza tracks but it was also great. A 7 for that.

'DJ Culture' was the lowest scorer of 4 for me. Kinda drifted into a nothingness and that robot voice grated oop.

DJ Culture the first PSB record to fall short of my top 10, largely thanks to the low-key vibe and low-key hook. What could have made a good album track on the next album, was a bit of a damp squib as a single. It lacked the dark beauty of Rent, or the moving pathos of Being Boring or the sad optimism of Love Comes Quickly, or the grandeur of Jealousy, and I'm not sure the message of the song came over clearly (I know I missed it!) - and it certainly couldnt be included in with their bangers, it sort of fell in between somewhere.

DJ Culture got 5.5 from me, a bigger score than I've given to the last few to go out.

DJ Culture is no sad loss for me, not a favourite at all.

I really love Don't Drop Bombs!

And there it is as I suspected it would be soon, the really-quite-good DJ Culture! I guess I can understand why it's not among people's favourites but I've always really liked it. I especially love the tinkly piano bit leading to the chorus, that still gets me!

4 hours ago, Gezza said:

Highest score: 9.5 @dandy* @mαngo

Lowest score: 2 @Ghoulian

I presume my username is no longer quotable with the special character? I'll have to change it to something else!

@Mangø

Seems ok! Or did you just change it again now?

Edited Sunday at 17:011 day by gooddelta

25 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

@Mangø

Seems ok! Or did you just change it again now?

Yeah, I just changed it!

Yes sorry it wasn't finding you

I'd probably have 'DJ Culture' a fair bit higher. I know it's pretty subdued, but it really takes me on a journey and I absolutely love it.

#48

SOMEWHERE

 

YEAR: 1997

PEAK POSITION: 9

 

You wanna live in this lousy world?

 

A track from the musical “West Side Story”, this was picked as a single to promote their residency at the Savoy Theatre and in which the track would play a starring role as the new single.  It was also used to promote a repackaged “Bilingual” album and wasn’t the first time they had worked on a Stephen Sondheim track as Liza Minelli’s cover of “losing Mt Mind” had also been produced by the group.

 

AI: “Somewhere” is one of the boldest choices in the PSB catalogue: taking West Side Story’s most fragile, hopeful ballad and blowing it up into a widescreen, orchestral‑dance anthem. Where the original is intimate and trembling, the Boys make it public, collective, and unmistakably queer.  The song’s dream of a place “for us” becomes, in their hands, a coded promise of belonging for anyone who’s ever felt outside the norm. It’s PSB doing what they do best: turning longing into architecture.

 

It’s “Go West”’s spiritual sibling: a vision of a better world delivered with camp sincerity and political undertones.

Highest score: 9- @King Rollo

Lowest score: 2- @Julian_

I don't really have any strong opinions on 'Somewhere', it's fine but not something I go back to often.