"Suburbia" is a song by UK synthpop

Synthpop

Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...

 duo Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys are an English electronic dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant, who provides main vocals, keyboards and occasional guitar, and Chris Lowe on keyboards....

. It was remixed and released as the fourth single from the album Please in 1986 and became the band's second UK Top 10 hit, peaking at #8.

Overview

The song's primary inspiration is the 1984 Penelope Spheeris

Penelope Spheeris

Penelope Spheeris is an American director, producer and screenwriter. She is best known as a documentary film director whose works include the trilogy titled The Decline of Western Civilization...

 film Suburbia

Suburbia (film)

Suburbia, also known as Rebel Streets and The Wild Side, is a 1984 film written and directed by Penelope Spheeris about suburban punks who run away from home. The kids take up a minimalist, punk lifestyle by squatting in abandoned suburban tract homes...

, and its depiction of violence and squalor in the suburbs of Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

; in addition, the tension of the Brixton riots of 1981 and of 1985

Brixton riot (1985)

The Brixton riot of 1985 started on 28 September in Lambeth in South London.It was the second major riot that the area had witnessed in the space of four years....

 hanging in recent memory led Neil Tennant

Neil Tennant

Neil Francis Tennant is an English musician, singer and songwriter, who, with bandmate Chris Lowe, makes up the successful electronic dance music duo Pet Shop Boys.-Childhood:...

 of the duo to thinking about the boredom of suburbia and the underlying tension among disaffected youth that sparked off the riots at the least provocation.

The various versions of the song are punctuated by sounds of suburban violence: rioting noises and smashing glass, as well as snarling dogs on the re-recorded single version (extended even further on the music video), which were derived from scenes in Suburbia. The Please version of the song sounds very sparse in comparison. Oddly, the version used for the video was the song that appeared on the PopArt compilation in 2003.

The video was directed by Eric Watson

Eric Watson (photographer)

Eric Watson is an English photographer.Watson moved to London in 1974 to study fine art at Hornsey Art College, where his contemporaries included Adam Ant and became an assistant to the photographer Red Saunders in 1980 and soon branched out as a photographer in his own right, primarily in the pop...

, and features footage of the Pet Shop Boys in a Los Angeles' suburb, as they happened to be there for that year's MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 Music Awards.

The B-sides to the single were "Jack the Lad" and "Paninaro

Paninaro (song)

"Paninaro" is a song by English synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys. Originally a B-side to the 1986 single "Suburbia", it was released as a limited-edition single in Italy during the same year; later, in 1995, a re-recording entitled "Paninaro '95" was released to a wider market, to promote the B-side...

". The Full Horror mix of "Suburbia" and the Italian Mix of "Paninaro" both appeared on the Pet Shop Boys album Disco

Disco (album)

Disco is the second album by the UK electronic music group Pet Shop Boys. It was released by Parlophone on .Disco was not an original studio album, but rather a collection of remixes of tracks from their first album, Please, and its respective B-sides...

as well as the "Suburbia" 12", and would later be collected on the 2001 2-disc re-release of Please.

2x7": Parlophone / RD 6140 (UK)

1. "Suburbia" (New version) – 3:59
2. "Paninaro" – 4:37
3. "Love comes quickly" (Shep Pettibone
   Shep Pettibone
   Robert E. Pettibone, Jr. is a record producer, remixer, songwriter and club DJ, one of the most prolific of the 1980s. His earliest work known to the public was for one of New York City's top disco/dance radio stations, WRKS 98.7 "Kiss" FM, and later as remixer/producer for the disco label Salsoul...
   
    mastermix – early fade) – 6:20
4. "Jack the lad" – 4:30
5. "Suburbia Pt. Two" – 2:20

MC: Parlophone / TC R 6140 (UK)

1. "Suburbia" (New version) – 3:59
2. "Paninaro" – 4:37
3. "Jack the Lad" – 4:30
4. "Love Comes Quickly" (Shep Pettibone Remix) – 7:34

12": Parlophone / 12 R 6140 (UK)

1. "Suburbia" (The Full Horror) – 8:55
2. "Paninaro" – 4:37
3. "Jack the Lad" – 4:30

12": EMI Manhattan / V-19226 (US)

1. "Suburbia" (The Full Horror) – 8:55
2. "Suburbia" (New version) – 3:59
3. "Jack the Lad" – 4:30

12": EMI Manhattan / SPRO-9925/9926 (US)

1. "Suburbia" (Club Vocal) – 7:10
2. "Suburbia" (Arthur Baker Dub) – 7:58

• Promo only Arthur Baker
  Arthur Baker (musician)
  Arthur Baker is an American record producer and DJ best known for his work with hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Patrol, and the British group New Order.-Early career:...
  
   remixes

• Suburbia "New version", "The Full Horror" and "Part Two" remixed by Julian Mendelsohn
  Julian Mendelsohn
  Julian Mendelsohn is a British record producer, audio engineer and mixer. Records bearing his work have been featured on English top ten charts...
  
  

Chart performance

Chart (1986)	Peak position
UK	8
Germany	2
Switzerland	3
Netherlands	2
Sweden	6
Austria	9
French	74