Pop Art: Pet Shop Boys - The Hits
| PopArt: Pet Shop Boys – The Hits | ||||
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| Greatest hits album by Pet Shop Boys | ||||
| Released | 24 November 2003 | |||
| Recorded | 1984–2003 | |||
| Genre | Synthpop, electropop, disco | |||
| Length | 147:19 | |||
| Label |
Parlophone Capitol (US) |
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| Producer | Pet Shop Boys | |||
| Pet Shop Boys chronology | ||||
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| Singles from PopArt: Pet Shop Boys – The Hits | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Release Magazine |   |
| New Musical Express | (10/10) |
| Pitchfork Media | (8.1/10) |
PopArt: Pet Shop Boys – The Hits is the fourteenth album by the UK electronic music duo Pet Shop Boys. It was released in 2003. PopArt is a compilation of Pet Shop Boys' top 20 UK singles along with two new tracks, "Miracles" and "Flamboyant" which have subsequently also been singles.
The most notable exclusion was "Was It Worth It?" (which was included as a brand new song on Discography: The Complete Singles Collection) because it only peaked at No. 24, while "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" (part of a double A-side with the U2 cover) was also omitted.
The album reached number 30 in the UK Albums Chart on original release and re-entered the UK charts in 2009 at No. 18. It kept on selling steadily, and proved a strong seller in other countries (with its best chart position in Norway, peaking at #2). Pet Shop Boys stated on their website they were happy with sales. The weekend after the Pet Shop Boys received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Popular Music in February 2009, PopArt re-entered the UK Albums Chart at number 19, advancing to number 18 the week after.
Unlike some "best of" compilations (including the earlier Discography: The Complete Singles Collection), the tracks on the discs are not arranged chronologically, but split into two categories. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe split the tracks into ones they thought were pure pop music ("Pop") and the ones that they thought were more creative/experimental ("Art").
A special limited edition was released with a third Compact Disc (CD), "Mix", appropriately featuring Tennant and Lowe's favourite remixes from their career.
The album edit of "Heart" was used on PopArt instead of the single edit. A previously unreleased version of "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing", using the structure of the seven-inch mix but with some elements of the album version, was also used instead of the version that had appeared on the 1993 single release. Several of the other tracks on the album appear in slightly different edits from their original single versions, such as "Suburbia", which for the first time appears in its music video edit on a Pet Shop Boys compilation album, instead of the seven-inch single remix of that song. A similar incident occurred with the Brazilian compilation Party in 2009. The US version of PopArt included the single versions of these tracks, but still omits the same tracks as the UK release.
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Wikipedia