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| “So Hard”
was launched in 1990 as the first single of “Behaviour”, the fourth studio
album of the Pet Shop Boys. The artwork was designed by Mark Farrow using
a photo taken by Eric Watson. According to Farrow, he was a lot more bothered
about what the remix sleeve would looked than the actual main sleeve would
looked because by that time he was designing a lot of ‘dance’ sleeves
for ‘Deconstruction Records’, where there no photos of the bands and the
whole design was typography based. So the actual main photo was integrated
into the sleeve after having the type design finalised with different
sizes and styles. The photo with Neil wearing a long coat and Chris eating
an apple was used in all formats (cassette, 7” & 12’ vinyls and CD) and
the back sleeve was completely in red with all the tracks and credit info
at the bottom with the catalogue number in a very big size, first time
in the history of the band where this number became a very important element
of the overall sleeve design. |
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| The
first commercial release of “So Hard” included the original version
and the B Side “It must be obvious” as well as the “Extended Dance Mix”
included in the CD & 12” Single and the “Dub Mix” included in the 12”
Single only. For the second commercial single, released in 12” vinyl in
the UK only and later in CD only in Germany (version that was not planned
since the beginning and just adapted the artwork from the 12" vinyl and
didn't change the catalogue number, using 12rx instead of cdrs, as it
happened later on), Farrow went to far by using only typography: in the
front sleeve there was the title “So Hard” in almost the same size as
the sleeve with the catalogue number above the word ‘hard’ and the rest
of the credits below in a very small type size, while the back cover just
showed the word “REMIX”; this release included a remix by The KLF and
the “UFO Mix” for “It must be obvious”. A third commercial single was
released in Germany only with a completely different sleeve showing a
photo of Neil & Chris from the “Behaviour” session with a graphic treatment
using green and blue colours and including three remixes by David Morales
for the 12” singles and a fourth remix available in the CD only. |
| For
the international releases, the US started producing more Pet Shop Boys
singles with “So Hard” by releasing 3 different 12” vinyls, corresponding
the 3 European versions: the first one was the commercial release, same
as the UK version in design and content; the other two were released as
12” Promos in generic die-cut sleeves with a sticker designed on the same
style as the second UK release but with different color combination in
each. The US CD included also a remix of “Paninaro” and a Promotional
CD included an edit of the “Extended Dance Mix” titled “So Hard - 9” Edit”,
also available on the Promotional 7” Single released in Mexico. The only
different international version was released in Brasil with a Promotional
12” Single with an artwork similar to the “Behaviour” cover: the white
background with one photo (chair and flowers) instead of four photos and
the title below in the same typographic style that reads “So hard - Pet
Shop Boys” and included just the original version in both sides. |
