Pet Shop Boys has magically transformed a Tina Turner tune into something new.
Back in January it was announced that Tina Turner’s 1984 comeback album Private Dancer would be getting a re-release with heaps of bonus tracks, rare cuts and remixes.
Ahead of the album’s return Hot for You Baby was released. It’s a rocking number that Turner recorded as part of the album’s session, but it didn’t make the final track listing, nor was it picked to be a B-side to any of the record’s many singles.
The track lay forgotten in the record company’s vaults for decades, never being heard until this year. And it’s not really a surprise it didn’t make the cut – it’s a pretty standard rock tune.
Now the song has been transformed by the Pet Shop Boys, they turn it into a minimalist electronic tune. Tina Turner never sounded like this.
It’s not the first time the Pet Shop Boys and Tina Turner have crossed paths. They wrote the song Confidential for her 1996 album Wildest Dreams and Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant sang backing vocals on the track.
For her comeback album in 1984 Turner was guided by her Australian manager Roger Davies, and this tune came from the legendary Australian songwriting team of Harry Vanda and George Young.
Vanda and Young were members of the Australian 60’s band The Easybeats who created the rock hits Friday on My Mind and Good Times.
The pair met as teenagers at teenagers at the Villawood Immigration Centre in the early 1960s. George Young’s younger brothers Malcolm and Angus would go on to form AC/DC, while Vanda and Young produced their early albums.
In the 1970s the duo moved into producing and songwriting. John Paul Young’s big hits Love is in the Air and Yesterday’s Hero were both Vanda and Young compositions. Cheetah’s Spend the Night was another big bit they penned, as was Mark Williams energetic Show No Mercy.
