Discography: The Complete Singles Collection

Discography: The Complete Singles Collection is the first greatest hits album by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 4 November 1991 by Parlophone.

Composition
Discography collects all of the singles released by Pet Shop Boys up to 1991. 16 of the 18 tracks were singles, while the last two tracks ("DJ Culture" and "Was It Worth It?") are new songs recorded exclusively for this compilation. Discography also contains a non-album single: the duo's cover version of U2's song "Where the Streets Have No Name", which later in the song breaks into the chorus of Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You". Although many of the album's songs were released in other forms, this compilation only features the seven-inch single versions.

Pet Shop Boys also released a companion video compilation, Videography, consisting of the music videos for each of the songs on Discography, arranged in a slightly different order. Additionally, the song "Was It Worth It?" was replaced with "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", which was not on the audio version of the album, despite being a double A-side with "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)" (the exclusion being due to the constrictions of the CD's running time).

Critical reception
Upon its release, Andrew Collins of NME praised the compilation as "sublime and clever pop music" and added that you "don't have to despise rock music in order to love it". He added, "These songs are rooted in a distinctly bourgeois variety of urban angst but just think how closer it all is to your life than 'Vienna' and all that New Romantic nonsense to which the PSBs are so clearly indebted." Simon Price of Melody Maker summarised, "Somehow the lush symphonic sweep of these singles seems deeply cinematic. Every song is a full-scale Panavision epic whose recurrent moods are regret, nostalgia, and above all, jealousy. If you want near-faultless shimmering, shuddering disco melodrama, nobody does it better."

Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Discography: The Complete Singles Collection.

Pet Shop Boys

 * Neil Tennant
 * Chris Lowe

Technical

 * Stephen Hague – production (tracks 1, 2, 6); remix (track 3); additional production (tracks 3, 5, 17); mixing (tracks 5, 7, 17)
 * David Jacob – engineering (tracks 1, 2, 6); original track production (track 8)
 * J. J. Jeczalik – original recording production (track 3)
 * Nicholas Froome – original recording production (track 3)
 * Ron Dean Miller – New York overdubs (track 3)
 * Julian Mendelsohn – production (tracks 4, 5, 7, 8, 15); engineering (tracks 4, 5, 7); mixing (tracks 6, 13, 14)
 * Pet Shop Boys – production (tracks 8, 9, 13–18); original track production (track 8); associate production (track 10)
 * Andy Richards – production (track 9)
 * Tony Phillips – engineering (track 9)
 * Lewis A. Martineé – production, engineering (track 10)
 * Mike Couzzi – engineering (track 10)
 * Trevor Horn – production (tracks 11, 12)
 * Stephen Lipson – production, engineering (track 11)
 * Pete Schwier – engineering (track 12)
 * Harold Faltermeyer – production (tracks 13, 14, 16)
 * Brian Reeves – engineering (tracks 13, 14, 16)
 * Bob Kraushaar – engineering (track 14)
 * Ren Swan – engineering (track 15)
 * Brothers in Rhythm – production (tracks 17, 18)
 * Paul Wright – engineering (tracks 17, 18); mixing (track 18)
 * Nick Webb – mastering

Artwork

 * Mark Farrow – design
 * Rob Petrie – design
 * 3a – design
 * PSB – design
 * Eric Watson – main photographs, other photographs
 * Peter Andreas – other photographs
 * Michael Roberts – other photographs
 * Douglas Brothers – other photographs
 * Lawrence Watson – other photographs