This film soundtrack, done by the Pet Shop Boys (Tennant/Lowe) is the latest new soundtrack to this classisc silent film (Battleship Potemkin) from the Russian school. Alone, the soundtrack is a bit strange because it fits the movie exactly, frame by frame, cut by cut. There are some abrupt changes and three songs. However it is a crowning achievement for Tennant and Lowe. I was most impressed by the performance as well. It's a live recording from Liechester Square in London, and it set a world record for the largest crowd ever to see an art film. If you love the Pet Shop Boys, You'll love this soundtrack which I count amongst their finest artistic achievements.

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Danny Schulz

Great one! Especially that they worked togehter with the ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2015

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Great one! Especially that they worked togehter with the Dresden Sinfoniker made it a must buy for me!

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Meech

T/L never disappoint

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2011

After hearing much negative feedback on this album from Pet Shop Boys fans ("largely unlistenable?"), I was overwhelmingly pleased with Battleship Potemkin. A curious but successful collaboration of styles, the score shifts and flows among the classically orchestral, the rhythmic eclectic and the elegant ambient, with a few unconventional time signatures thrown in to keep us balancing ourselves on deck. Neil's always embraceable vocals appear on several tracks, humbly adding depth to the musical texture rather than distracting us from it.

Don't expect to want to add this album to your Keg Party playlist, but whether you're a fan of film soundtracks or Tennant/Lowe - or if you'd just like to be taken on a truly unique aural journey - I very much recommend listening to Potemkin start to finish at least twice. I'm fast discovering that these enduring artists can transform almost any creative concept into a musical triumph.

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Olman G. Aguilar Gamboa

Without words....

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2009

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The best combination of electronic and classical style music, only the Pet Shop Boys can make this piece or art...enjoy, because it is a real good one.

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Ananda7

Into Battle with the Pet Shop Boys

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2005

Battleship Potemkin is a beautiful piece of electro-prog (electronic music blended with classical music). Mostly instrumental, but containing a few vocal gems, this is one of the best things I have ever heard from Pet Shop Boys. They have always submerged their artistic inclinations under a shroud of pop and disco, but it occasionally surfaced in remixes, B-sides, and even the first half of their BILINGUAL album. Always afraid of breaking their string of perfect pop singles, this album was even released under their name as composers (Tennant/Lowe) rather than the Pet Shop Boys moniker. Then stickers were placed on the cover to make it clear that this is a Pet Shop Boys album in both writing and performance. In my opinion, it only strengthens their artistic credibility. A large share of the credit has to go to the orchestrations written by Torsten Rasch (performed by the Dresdner Sinfoniker)-- the strings are amazing throughout. But the Boys turn in equally interesting performances. "After All (The Odessa Staircase") is a stunning composition-- one of the best of their career-- with excellent vocal melodies by Neil and an amazing merger of electronica and strings. For a focus on the strings, listen to the opening track, "Comrades!" "Men and Maggots" is one of the most successful instrumental tracks, but there are really no clunkers on this album. The slamming electronic beat of "Nyet" and the mantric chant ("Da....Nyet!") provides a compelling background for some scorching explorations on synthesizers and occasional blasts of strings. The only thing even remotely pop-like is "No time for tears," which was even considered for release as a single. It's a beautiful song, with Neil's high voice at its breathiest. It's a good thing it wasn't released, as this album works best as a continuous flow of music. Even this ballad ends with the rhythms picking up and segueing into one of the album's most beautiful orchestrations ("To the battleship"). There's no way to stop or start this soundtrack-- just let if flow from start to finish.
As a soundtrack to the 1925 silent film, it does get a bit intense by the end, but mostly it is appropriate to the scenes of the film. There are a few scenes where I would have opted for something different, but quite honestly I think this is better than the classical scores that have been used previously. Oh, and if you are trying to get it in sync to the film, you have to hold the CD up at the end of track 3 (where the glass breaks) and wait for the scene in the film where a sailor washing dishes smashes a dish. This is because a large chunk of track 2 was deleted for the CD release. The soundtrack and film should play out pretty much together from that point on. I've watched them together so many times, I'm starting to have visual flashbacks when I listen to the soundtrack alone.
Aside from perhaps "Being Boring" or "Electricity," I think this is the best thing Pet Shop Boys have ever done. It irks me that they have performed it live in Britain and Germany, but we Americans are probably considered too shallow and artless to appreciate it in concert. Personally, I wish the Boys would do a tour where they perform it in its entirety. But alas, I'm living in the memory of the 1970s, when it was fashionable to pull out all the artistic stops and regale fans in the most complex music you can muster. Battleship Potemkin fits that bill perfectly.

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R. W. Mitchell

I have no idea!!!! Can't play disk!!

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2014

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I don't know if this CD is any good [or bad]. I ordered the CD from a provider in Japan. Apparently, I can't play a Japanese disk in the US. I'm waiting for a replacement disk.

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DOKTORx Obelisk

Bettern' Pink Floyd while stoned! 0___*

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2006

Wow!

I love this album! This is the best thing they've released in a VERY long time! Such an eargasm after Release - which, although better than most crap being made nowadays, was just so not THEM... and I couldn't get into it very much.

This is the kind of album you just have to allow to play from start to end - if you stop and start it at different parts of the disc, the soundtrack loses its power. I do, however, prefer certain tracks. My absolute fave was "The Squadron", which is probably the most thrilling track they've ever composed. The strings in it are stunning, and the buildup is so dramatic, by the time you reach the melody, it's like you're having some kind of orgasm. At least, after a joint that's what it's like! ;-)

I do hope they release the film with this soundtrack dubbed over it on DVD - I actually have never seen the original version, and so seeing the film for the first time with this amazing score would be mesmerizing.

Anyone who thinks the PSB are just another lame 80s gay pop band /who think they've lost their touch in recent years has to hear this.

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ミルミル

ポップ以外のペット・ショップ・ボーイズ

Reviewed in Japan on February 27, 2019

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　petshopboysが手がけた古い無声映画のサウンドトラックです。
　petshopboysサウンドがちりばめられていて、映像なしでも十分聴き応えのあるcdです。
　YouTubeで映像を見ながら聴いてみました。。昔の無声映画ですが、petshopboysの音楽が加わると感動してしまいました。各シーンをとても上手く表現していると思います。　
　同映画の他の作曲者のサウンドトラックと比べると、petshopboysのサウンドはインパクトが強いように感じました。
　彼らはアーティストだと感じました。

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Autonome

Pet Shop Boys, foreground music

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 27, 2015

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Composing a new soundtrack for "Battleship Potemkin" appears prima facie like a daunting task.

The 1925 film is an overpowering movie classic, a masterpiece, and on top of it, composing a soundtrack for this film means exactly that: a soundtrack as the movie is silent, therefore the music will be the only sound permeating the 75-odd minutes of footage.
In front of that challenge, Pet Shop Boys' soundtrack is gobsmacking. Neil and Chris took up the gauntlet with taste, enthousiam, and an amazing craftmanship. Pet Shop Boys' "Battleship Potemkin" is a very successful suite for symphony orchestra, electronic instruments and vocals.
It succeeds in presenting a unified composition that is more than an hour long. To give the soundtrack a bit of density, the Boys hired the Dresdner Sinfoniker (a German-based string orchestra specialised in contemporary music) and Torsten Rasch to take care of the orchestrations.

The introduction ("Comrades!" - with orchestra) is a very classical theme showing that British composers are always very good at evoking the sea and its environment: I thought about Britten's Four Sea Interludes while listening to this melancholic, "open space" music. After this, "Men and maggots" is one of the few tracks performed only by the Pet Shop Boys - with traditional accompaniment, keyboards but also amazing percussion line (not that frequent in PSB music, congas in particular) while "our daily bread" is a beautiful (even if short) musical comment on an inscription on a plate (to be subsequently broken),
After this terrific intro, the music will follow the narrative of the film - another sign that the Boys were not here to substitute themselves for the movie, but really to accompany it. The different mood swings ("Drama in the harbour", a genuine musical twilight by its end), and "Nyet" (a high-octane electro piece) keep the attention high and the musicality at a high level.

"Odessa" is another variation on the opening theme of "Comrades!" with piano and keyboards, and it comes before the first peak of the piece, the heart-wrenching "No time for tears", enhanced by Neil Tennant's beautiful vocals and lyrics. The song expands on the thematic promises of "Comrades!" and turns into a magnificent orchestral-electronic anthem by a genius chord change at about 3'17-3'18. The song, which was mournful and lyrical, becomes anthemic, supported by the silky strings of the Dresdner Sinfoniker..Big wow moment and goosebump all over.
The Boys manage to reiterate this moment of grace in "To the battleship" at about 3'30: another sublime chord change where the strings take over a reprise of the main theme.
Following this lyricsm, the troops' attack celebrated in the famous "Odessa staircase" is the opportunity for another beautiful melody by Neil Tennant, "After All" - a politically-charged song against the war in Iraq in which the incommensurable sadness of the lyrics is contradicted by the march-like instrumentation of the track - which at this points portrays the massacre of the population of Odessa.
Following this peak, the music is back into narration mode before decision time on the Potemkin. The last three tracks are a beautiful ode to freedom and to machinery (the speed acceleration musically portrayed in "The squadron" is VERY exciting, and reminded me of some of the most dynamic pieces by Bartok or Shostakovich). "For Freedom" is the third "song" of the soundtrack and is a beautiful, peaceful (and logical) conclusion to the musical adventure that preceded. The sudden entrance of the transformed theme of "no time for fear" is another beautiful peak of this fantastic score, which survives very well without the movie that it comments on, but which takes all its meaning when played with it.
An unforgettable musical experience - that I took some time to comment - but I really think it was worth it...The piece deserves it.

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Bob Uppen-Daan

Splendid, soaring, dark, atmospheric and very, very Russian.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2005

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What a soundtrack! This is PSB personified in their familiar but never tiresome electro/orchestral music.
This album is a treat for any PSB fan or anyone with a passion for the Russian sound, a sound of hardship and exhaustive conditions, so well portrayed in this masterpiece.
In Neil's own words; "Foreground music" and deservedly so. A courageous album for any artist except Tennant/Lowe, for they are now at a stage where they can undertake any project and produce a winner.
I urge you to buy and listen to this album. You will not regret it.
Best track (in my humble opinion): 'Night Falls'. Try listening to it without getting clear images in your mind, it cannot be done.

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アタゴオル

聴けません。。。

Reviewed in Japan on May 14, 2008

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iTunes+iPodでは聴くことができません。

金返せ〜!

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Mr. Paul Millennas

I was there

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 29, 2008

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I have always been a fan of the movie, which is mercifully short.

I saw the "Boys" play this at a live screening of the movie at Trafalgar Square one damp Sunday evening. The music just fitted the action, which it was meant to.

Why did they release this as a CD, when a DVD of the movie and soundtrack would have replicated the original intent? Perhaps they will.

As I am not a follower of the Pet Shop Boys, this has been my only CD by them. But then, I still play it so it must be OK.

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