Pet Shop Boys

[Norton Canes]

I mean as slang phrases go I guess "Fan of Pet Shop Boys" isn't quite as clear as 'Friend of Dorothy', but still

[PaulTMA]

Always On My Mind is a fantastic single and my favourite version of that song. In Neil Tennant's delivery you hear how he lost the guy but the music tells you how he's going to get him back.

The final "maybe I never loved you" that is unique to their version is brutal

[Astronaut Omens]

Maybe I didn't love you...
Yes, it's a great punchline to the song, and it's cool it was lying there, dormant, in the opening line of Elvis' version for 15 years. In that context the sunniness of the music is like the release of the singer finally being honest with himself.

[MidnightShambler]

Definitely a singles act in my opinion but I love their 80's singles and Neil Tennant's presence in general, a great interviewee and lyricist even if the music often (since the 80s anyway) doesn't quite live up to the lyrics. After Behaviour it's slim pickings for me though the singles off Nightlife are pretty impressive. Having said that, my favourite PSB song is Young Offender which was never a single: pervy melancholy is hard to do as a songwriter and this is a great example of it. "How graceful your movements how bitter your scorn, I've been a teenager since the day you were born" is a wonderful lyric and when sung it concisely sums up how the ageing process is different somehow when you're queer.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely interested. But how is the ageing process somehow different if you're queer? On the face of it that's absurd.

[PaulTMA]

Yes sorry that is the correct lyric

[Johnboy]

I wouldn't say i'm a fan and I don't 'get' them either but I did see them play a greatest hits show in a big tent around 10 years ago and it was pretty great.

[dissolute ocelot]

They're great in a discotheque, surprisingly great live (they know how to put on a show), and were great on Top of the Pops. Which isn't music for every occasions, but quite a few. Neil Tennant was a genius around image, combining a type of classic Englishness with gay culture, in a way that could be appreciated by people of all ages. Sometimes they were definitely more about the lyrics, but also some great disco bangers. I'm not a die hard fan but I saw them live with my mum and appreciate the classic singles and know enough aging gay people to be educated on the matter

I'm not trying to be argumentative here, I'm genuinely interested. But how is the ageing process somehow different if you're queer? On the face of it that's absurd.

I'm not an expert but seems to be a mix of things from gay culture valuing male youth and beauty more than straight culture, to the experience of having watched your peers die of AIDS (while the young don't understand), to the different family and substitute-family structures. Here's some reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/gay-and-lesbian-well-being/201204/gay-men-and-aging-finding-your-purpose
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3789531/
https://discoversociety.org/2019/08/07/fifty-years-after-stonewall-gay-men-are-queering-aging/