"Absolutely Fabulous" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released by

Parlophone Parlophone Records Limited (also known as Parlophone Records and Parlophone) is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 192 ...

and Spaghetti Records as a single for 1994's

Comic Relief Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension. Definition Comic relief usually means a releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic epis ...

under the artist name "Absolutely Fabulous"; it is based on the BBC sitcom of the same name created by

Jennifer Saunders Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English actress, comedian, singer and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of ...

and features

sound bite A sound bite or soundbite is a short clip of speech or music extracted from a longer piece of audio, often used to promote or exemplify the full length piece. In the context of journalism, a sound bite is characterized by a short phrase or sentence ...

s taken from the first series of the show. The single peaked at number six on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

and number seven on the US '' Billboard''

Hot Dance Club Play Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as th ...

chart. It was more successful in Oceania, debuting and peaking at number two in both Australia and New Zealand; in the former country, it is the band's highest-charting single, and in both, it was their last top-10 entry.

Releases

Apart from its release as a single, the song "Absolutely Fabulous" also appears on the "Further Listening" disc that came with the 2001 reissue of the Pet Shop Boys album '' Very''. The music video clip of the song features on Pet Shop Boys' video compilation ''Various'', available on VHS, as well as on the ''AbFab'' DVD collection of series one through three. The ''Our Tribe Tongue-In-Cheek Mix'' version of the song features on the band's '' Disco 2'' album.

Critical reception

In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton wrote, "It is ostensibly a comedy record but few comedy records claim to possess as much dancefloor credibility as this one." He added, "Now its stars,

and

Joanna Lumley Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom ''Absolutely Fabulous'' (1992 ...

team up with the Pet Shop Boys to make this dance track, interspersed with sampled dialogue from the TV series along with various posturings from

Edina EDINA is a centre for digital expertise, based at the University of Edinburgh as a division of the Information Services Group. Services EDINA front-end services (those accessed directly by the user) are available free at the point of use for ...

and

Patsy Patsy is a given name often used as a diminutive of the feminine given name Patricia or sometimes the masculine name Patrick, or occasionally other names containing the syllable "Pat" (such as Cleopatra, Patience, Patrice, or Patricia). Among I ...

of which ''Techno Techno Bloody Techno Darling!'' is possibly a highlight..." Pan-European magazine '' Music & Media'' described it as "a Pet Shop electro popper". Alan Jones from ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

'' rated it five out of five and named it Single of the Week, adding, "The Pet Shop Boys have done a splendid job assembling some memorable snippets from the TV series' Patsy and Edina over a relentless disco beat. All profits from the single – which are likely to be considerable – go to

. A potential number one." Ian Gittins of '' Melody Maker'' felt that, with the song, the duo had "lowered their impeccable standards for the very first time". He wrote, "The Pet Shops sound as lusciously as ever, but Tennant's usual Mike-Leigh-down-the-disco existential witticisms (sadly missing here) are infinitely preferable to Saunders and Lumley reciting tired catchphrases and making jokes about ' Pump Up the Volume' a mere, uh, five years after

MARRS MARRS (stylised M, A, R, R, S) were a 1987 recording collective formed by the groups A.R. Kane and Colourbox, which only released one commercial disc. It became "a one-hit wonder of rare influence" because of their international hit " Pump Up t ...

had the hit. And Jennifer, darling, sweetie; the words 'caviar', 'Moet' and 'Vogue', set to a house beat, are not per se funny." Rupert Howe from ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' commented, "Pats 'n' Edi rope in Neil 'n' Chris for a one-off slice of charidee cheese which will bounce straight into the Top Ten thanks to a Pet Shop production that's tighter than the skin over Pats' cheekbones. There's not much to it, of course — snippets of the series' cringeworthy hack PR-speak jostle for spare with a few cheeky

Black Box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...

/M/A/R/R/S/

2 Unlimited 2 Unlimited are a Belgian/Dutch dance music act, founded by Belgian producers/songwriters Jean-Paul De Coster and Phil Wilde in 1991 in Antwerp, Belgium. From 1991 to 1996, Dutch rapper Ray Slijngaard and Dutch vocalist Anita Doth fronted the ...

references".

Music video

The accompanying music video for the song was directed by British and Scottish directors

Howard Greenhalgh Howard Douglas Greenhalgh (born 19 February 1963) is a British director of music videos and advertising. Biography Greenhalgh was born in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire and studied at the Royal College of Art, setting up the firm Why No ...

and

Bob Spiers Robert Alexander Spiers (27 September 1945 – 8 December 2008) was a Scottish television comedy director and producer. He worked on many sitcoms and won two British Academy Television Awards for ''Fawlty Towers'' and ''Absolutely Fabulous''. He ...

. It features the Pet Shop Boys, wearing white suits, white hats and sunglasses, performing while ''Absolutely Fabulous'' characters

and

(

and

) dance around them. Clips from the first two original TV series are interspersed throughout the video.

Track listings

* UK and Australian CD single # "Absolutely Fabulous" (7-inch mix) # "Absolutely Fabulous" (Our Tribe Tongue-in-Cheek mix) # "Absolutely Dubulous" # "Absolutely Fabulous" (Dull Soulless Dance Music mix) * Withdrawn UK CD single # "Absolutely Fabulous" (7-inch mix) # "Absolutely Fabulous" (Our Tribe Tongue-in-Cheek mix) # "Absolutely Dubulous" # "

This Wheel's on Fire "This Wheel's on Fire" is a song written by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko. It was originally recorded by Dylan and the Band during their 1967 sessions, portions of which (including this song) comprised the 1975 album, '' The Basement Tapes''. The B ...

" :This CD was withdrawn due to copyright legalities for "This Wheel's on Fire". * UK 7-inch and cassette single # "Absolutely Fabulous" (7-inch mix) # "Absolutely Fabulous" (Dull Soulless Dance Music mix) * UK 12-inch single :A1. "Absolutely Fabulous" (Our Tribe Tongue-in-Cheek mix) :A2. "Absolutely Dubulous" :B1. "Absolutely Fabulous" (7-inch mix) :B2. "Absolutely Fabulous" (Dull Soulless Dance Music mix)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Absolutely Fabulous 1994 singles 1994 songs Absolutely Fabulous Comic Relief singles Music based on television series Parlophone singles Pet Shop Boys songs Songs written by Chris Lowe Songs written by Neil Tennant