Songoftheday 10/29/15 - You always wanted a lover I only wanted a job, I've always worked for a living how am i gonna get through?

"What Have I Done To Deserve This?" - Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield
from the album actually. (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day is by the British synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys, whose sophomore album actually. returned them to the top ten in America with "It's A Sin". For the second single Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe recruited a singer they revered, British "blue-eyed" soul legend Dusty Springfield, for the tune "What Have I Done To Deserve This?". Dusty, who was nearing her 50th birthday, had been gone from the American Top-40 since 1970's "Brand New Me". In her 60s heyday, she reached the top-10 on the pop chart three times before, but the retro-styled track with Neil's deadpan rap anchoring the song squarely in the 80s, became her highest-charting single ever in the States...

"What Have I Done To Deserve This?" climbed all the way to the runner-up spot on the American pop chart in February of 1988. The single also crossed over to #14 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, while the 12" remix went to #1 on the Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the song topped the singles chart in Ireland, made the #2 spot in their native Britain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Finland, and top-10 in Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, Norway, New Zealand, and Switzerland.

As a result of the exposure from the single, Springfield recorded a whole album with the Pet Shop Boys, Reputation, that sent three singles into the British top-40, with "In Private" crossing the Atlantic to make the top-20 on the U.S. Dance chart in 1990. She put out a followup in 1995, with a collaboration with Daryl Hall (of Hall and Oates), "Wherever Would I Be" almost reaching the British top-40 at #44. Sadly, she succumbed to cancer in 1999, right before she would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

The 12" single went to #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Here's the "a-side" Extended Mix from Julian Mendelsohn...