|
|
| “Please”
is the first Pet Shop Boys’ studio album released in March, 1986 after
the success of their two first singles, “West End girls” and “Love comes
quickly” in both, Europe and North America. The artwork was designes by
Mark Farrow and PSB and it was as minimal as its title. Farrow wanted
to use reversed marketing by creating a big white cover with a very tiny
picture (barely bigger than a postage stamp) and title in the middle,
when every other sleeve in a record store would be full photos and information.
The idea of using a tiny photo came from a previous design he did for
the group Section 25, from Factory Records but wanted to use it in a cleaner
way with the Pet Shop Boys. The photo used on the front cover was taken
by Eric Watson, old friend of Neil since college and who will became one
of the lead photographers for the band along his career until he passed
away in 2012. |
|
The picture showed Neil & Chris in white t-shirts with towels around
their necks that worked perfectly well with the white background. The
back cover had all the tracks and credits creating a small block of
text in the middle that echoes the design of the front. A first promotional
vinyl of “Please” with the catalogue number ‘PSB1’ was released with
an exterior tri-fold wraparound sleeve that once opened could read ‘please’
on the front and included a biography of the band and two photos (previously
used for the 10” Single of “Love comes quickly”) in b&w on the reverse;
it also included a set of 8” x 10” promotional photos in b&w and the
standard UK release LP.
|
|
|
| The
commercial release of “Please” in the UK used the big white cover
with the tiny photo in the middle and the name of the band and title below
for the outer sleeve and, for the inner sleeve, a selection of 98 photos
of the exact same size as the one in the cover were placed on both sides
of the sleeve and taken by a fair amount of photographers including Eric
Watson, Paul Rider, John Stoddard, Brian Aris, Joe Shutter, Ian Hooton,
Chris Burscough and Chris Lowe. For the CD cover, instead of reducing
the LP sleeve proportionately, Farrow decided to maintain the original
size of the photo and text, reducing the amount of white space around.
For the European releases, a new cover artwork was designed using a rectangular
crop of the original photo in half of the sleeve with the name of the
band and title in one line at the top; depending on the country of manufacturing,
the legend “Incl. Hit singles West End Girls, Love comes quickly and Opportunities”
was also printed or included in a sticker (i.e. in Spain this legend was
traduced to Spanish so it reads ”Incluye los éxitos…”). |
| Most
of the releases outside Europe used the original white cover with the
tiny picture but moving the text at the top of the sleeve and also included
the “hit singles” legend in different ways… the US release with a big
sticker at the left hand corner; the Japanese release with the classic
OBI Strip and the Mexican edition with a printed black label in Spanish
that reads “Incluye ‘Chicas Vagabundas’ (West End girls) | No. 1 en Inglaterra
| No. 1 en Estados Unidos”. The Argentinean release used the European
cover but translating the title to its Spanish meaning “por favor”. In
1997 a Box Set compilation including the first three studio albums of
the Pet Shop Boys (excluding Introspective) was released including the
original LP artwork printed in Cardboard Sleeves instead of plastic jewel
cases commonly used for CDs. In 2001, a digitally re-mastered edition
of “Please” was released including a bonus disc with additional tracks,
mixes and unreleased songs and housed on a double plastic jewel case with
an external 36-page booklet with interviews, lyrics and exclusive photographs;
both, the CD and booklet, were packaged in a spot varnished slipcase with
the original LP cover image without any text on top and instead placing
it on the left hand top corner and reading from top to bottom, same as
the other 5 CDs on the “Further Listening” Series. |
