"Flamboyant" is a song by English

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...

duo

Pet Shop Boys The Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1981. Consisting of primary vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe, they have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, and were listed as the most successful duo i ...

from their greatest hits album, '' PopArt: The Hits'' (2003). It was released on 29 March 2004 as the album's second and final single, reaching number nine in Spain, number 12 in the United Kingdom, and number 13 in Denmark. The song was remixed for single release, and an extended mix of the original album version—dubbed the "Tomcraft Extended Mix"—was issued as one of the single's

B-sides The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company ...

. The other B-side, "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today", features

Johnny Marr Johnny Marr (born John Martin Maher, 31 October 1963) is an English musician, songwriter and singer. He first achieved fame as the guitarist and co-songwriter of the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 1987. He has since performed with numerous ...

on guitars. The single cover art contains the song title and the duo's name in

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

: . The single cover features

Chris Lowe Christopher Sean Lowe (born 4 October 1959) is an English musician, singer and songwriter, and co-founder of the synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, which he formed with Neil Tennant in 1981. Biography Lowe attended Arnold School, an independent ...

with long hair, which he sported for a short time.

Music video

The music video for "Flamboyant" was directed by Nico Beyer. Heavily based on aspects of

Japanese popular culture Japanese popular culture includes Japanese cinema, cuisine, television programs, anime, manga, video games, music, and doujinshi, all of which retain older artistic and literary traditions; many of their themes and styles of presentation can be t ...

, it tells the story of a Japanese office worker who aspires to appear on the television variety show ''

Kasou Taishou Kasou Taishou (; Kinchan and Katori Shingo's All Japan Costume Grand Prix, internationally known as ''Masquerade'') is a semi-annual Japanese television variety show that is run on Nippon TV and first aired in 1979. The program shows in which va ...

'', where guests perform silly stunts. He envisions a

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

-based routine, where he and others portray living balls on an enormous pool table. In the beginning of the video, scenes are of his unsupportive environment; his wife is annoyed at him, his manager scolds him for reading a billiards magazine at work, and his coworkers tease him at lunch. At the end of the video, however, he and his team perform their routine successfully on the show and win top ranking. The story footage is intercut with fake Japanese-style television commercials where the Pet Shop Boys offer various products such as an automatic ironing machine and a car called Boxy (Nissan Micra). The video was finally released on DVD on the documentary ''A Life in Pop'', although the disc does not mention the video's inclusion. Some territories, like Canada, do not feature the video.

Track listings

*2-track CD # "Flamboyant" (single mix) # "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today" *Enhanced CD # "Flamboyant" (

Tomcraft Thomas Brückner (born 12 June 1975), known by his stage name Tomcraft, is a German DJ and producer. He specializes in progressive house and progressive trance music and is better known for having created the tracks "Loneliness" and "Prosac", w ...

extended mix) # "Flamboyant" (

Scissor Sisters Scissor Sisters were an American pop rock band formed in 2001. Its members include Jake Shears and Ana Matronic as vocalists, Babydaddy as multi-instrumentalist, Del Marquis as lead guitar/bassist, and Randy Real (who replaced Paddy Boom) as dr ...

silhouettes & shadows mix) # "Flamboyant" (

DJ Hell Helmut Josef Geier (born 6 September 1962), known professionally as DJ Hell, is a German DJ. Biography 1970s and 1980s DJ Hell described his musical beginnings in an interview with '' The European'', telling them “I was socialized with ...

remix) # "Flamboyant" (demo version) # "Flamboyant" (Enhanced video)

Charts

References

2003 songs 2004 singles Parlophone singles Pet Shop Boys songs Songs written by Chris Lowe Songs written by Neil Tennant {{2000s-pop-single-stub