Pet Shop Boys - The Electronic Kings, Actually

Neil Francis Tennant and Christopher Sean Lowe are the Pet Shop Boys. Their unique brand of pop music - sometimes flamboyant, sometimes melancholic but always relentlessly compelling - has achieved worldwide recognition. The acerbic beauty of their lyrics and their deeply English sense of irony and loss has appealed to millions and spawned an army of loyal acolytes, or "Petheads". The Boys are a double act worthy of Gilbert and George - the taciturn blunt northerner (Chris) who huddles behind shades and baseball cap is a perfect foil to the erudite and loquacious Neil. From their first, mythical encounter in a King's Road hi-fi shop all those years ago to the packed stadia and Brit Award accolades of today, the Pet Shop Boys' entire career has boasted a strong theatrical quality.

The Pet Shop Boys defined an era with the gritty social realism of West End Girls. Their early albums brazenly exposed the moral and economic vortex of Thatcherite London. Yet they still cut it today - hip Eighties urbanites who are now dance floor godfathers, icons no longer just to the gay community but to middle-aged dads everywhere. This Hubpage is proud to review some of their finest works.

Critical opinion is divided on the Boys' finest hour. "Please" propelled the band into the limelight but many believe the greatest albums came later. For many, it has to be "Very" - the groundbreaking, orange-hived and fully "out" album that stormed into the early 1990s charts. These are iconic images - who can forget the Boys marching in Red Square wearing multicoloured cycle helmets while a Soviet military choir blares out "Go West". The paranoia, denial and serpentine lyrics of "Can You Forgive Her?" mark a truly literary form - a masterpiece.

However many true Petheads will point to the melancholic, wistful themes of "Behaviour" (1991) as their finest artistic hour. "Behaviour", still more than dance-driven Introspective, was surely the album where the Pet Shop Boys matured from pop icons to a more mature and reflective outlook. Some of the songs are heartbreakingly sad - the story of the marital break-up "Only the Wind" and the unhappy schoolday reflections of "This Must Be The Place I Waited Years to Leave". For many the sad, wistful nostalgia of "Being Boring" - reflections on growing up, love, life and above all loss - is the pinnacle of the Pet Shop Boy's creative accomplishments.

I prefer one of the first tracks Chris ever wrote, "Jealousy" is a true Shakespearean tragedy, a captivating and hook-drenched finale to this most perfect, if commercially flawed, of PSB albums. The voiceover from Othello in the extended version sums up the poignant message of the Boys' best works:

Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.

(c) WestOcean 2009

Fundamental was a milestone, the irrevocable proof that age did not weary the Pet Shop Boys and they could still capture the essential magic of their glory years. Their follow-up, "Yes", has a more controversial reputation. To their credit, Neil and Chris took a risk - by engaging famed production outfit Xenomania to work with them. Best known for launching high octane pop stars such as Cheryl Cole, Brian Higgins and his Home Counties magicians were known for their pulsating, poptastic signature groove. Would this magic formula work with a couple of urbane, urban and very dry-witted fortysomethings. Could the resulting album - to use a PSB in-joke - expect to be taken seriously? The answer is an unqualified yes.

This author first had the pleasure of hearing "Yes" at a special preview event hosted by Parlophone Records and industry blog Popjustice in London in March 2009. The atmosphere was expectant. Nearly a hundred devoted "Petheads" had gathered to hear the new album played and the Pet Shop Boys interviewed on stage. In a nod to the social media darling of the day, Chris took a Twitpic of the audience.

The audience loved the album - and this even before Neil and Chris appeared on stage to answer questions in their trademark double act worthy of Gilbert and George. Neil, as ever, was the flamboyant, effervescent orator and Chris, hidden behind his shades and baseball cap, interjected the occasional bitter slice of dry, pithy Lancastrian wit.

So has this Xenomania collaboration worked? It’s still an odd musical marriage. None of these tracks has the explosive hi-energy power of a Trevor Horn synth-romp, so I should start my review by stating that this album does not, and cannot, equal the superlative grand folie that is ”Fundamental.” That’s a pity. On “Yes”, the finest tracks in my view come straight from an older copybook of classic PSB themes. On balance, the collaboration can be described as a partial success. The tracks are reviewed below.

1. Love etc.

A hooky, spacey and innovative contribution that betrays the Xenomania effect in its football-terrace chorus and repetitively hypnotic musical structure. The effect is magnified in the video with its symmetrical and surreal computer graphics. Mind you, the video could have been “Go West” circa 1993... the PSBs have done all this before. I enjoyed the parodic sideswipes at L.A. consumer culture – the kind of sideswipe at materialism we have come to know and love ever since “Opportunities”. The song’s a hit and grower, but to me, not a classic.

2. All over the world

“This is a song for boys and girls”, and it’s a good one too. The chorus is addictive, structured and repetitive, with some echoes (to me) of “Domino Dancing”. Intelligent lyrics, explosions of sound and more hooks than a meat factory add up to a fine PSB track.

3. Beautiful people

Very much the counterpoint to track one, this song is a thoughtful, lyrically subtle and strangely restful song. The song exhorts “I want to live like beautiful people” but the yearning is mixed with hints of doubt and regret, lending the song more depth than its lyrics suggest.

4. Did you see me coming?

An accomplished and mature track with a catchy chorus, with typically emotionally reflective and self-aware content – “You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what?” Although in my view, the song is a tad pedestrian and formulaic.

5. Vulnerable

I suppose artists have to write about what they know, but the lament “Try being me when you walk down the street” is hardly going to ring any emotional bells with those millions of us who no-one knows from Adam (or Eve). Still this is an attractive mid-tempo introspective song, with a note of defiance “I am no-one’s stepping stone” and a hooky chorus. 

6. More than a dream

At last the album is picking up steam! “More than a dream” is a compelling, catchy and riff-ridden track which feels powerful right from the opening chords: “Coming soon... something good”. The overt optimism – “I believe that we can change; we can make it more than a dream!” is deployed with an elusive, magical frisson rather than a full-on happy rant. This is a cautiously hopeful, slightly mystical song, and it strikes all the right emotional chords. The counter-harmony on the bridge – “Driving through the night” is top-notch. Great work, N&C.

7. Building a Wall

The thematic successor to the privacy, police-state concerns of Fundamental, this track boasts an engaging and catchy chorus. The “wall” operates at so many emotional, lyrical and political levels, referencing a lost world of Cold War spies and Hadrian’s wall. They appeal to their childhood playing in the bomb-sites in the vanished England of Betjeman. I’m not exaggerating – Neil directly quotes him with “Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea” before Chris deflates those pretensions with a withering “Who do you think you are? Captain Britain?” It’s wonderful to see how the Boys have matured into middle-aged, small-c conservative English pastoralists.

8. King of Rome

A thoughtful, subdued and introspective track – a bit like “Before” but without the energy or Latin spirit.

9. Pandemonium

I’m not the first to see a mental image of the TARDIS cavorting through time and space on hearing these opening bars, because the opening chords (a cynic might argue) bear a passing resemblance to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop circa 1963. This is a truly excellent track – really the only full-on PSB party anthem on the album. You don’t have to be a hi-NRG music fan to appreciate the power and melody of this track.

10. The way it used to be

This is song is so good it is on a complete different plane of reality to the rest of the album. The ice-cold, withering opening is a heart-stopping emotional connection to the finest hour of “Behaviour” (1991) The song is a classic PSB theme, being a sad, mournful reflection on the transience of love. The bridge is hauntingly beautiful: “I survive with only memories, if I could change the way I feel. But I want more than only memories; the human touch to make them real”. This is one of the Boys’ finest songs, period – and proof that 25 years on, they have still got the raw talent that first drove their success.

11. Legacy

It’s interesting to see that UK phone retaile the Carphone Warehouse has achieved immortality in the PSB lyrics amid high-speed trains and other arcane historical references. I found the song a little jarring, unbalanced and confusing, myself, but on reflection I think that’s the whole point. Top marks too for including “The Pilgrimage of Grace” into the lyrics – Neil is after all a History graduate. Poetic in its own strange way.

Design

“You don’t have to be beautiful - but it’s nice”. The multicoloured rainbow tick is an intelligent and professional musical motif, which underscores the positivity of the title and helps lend an upbeat feel to the album. After all, this is probably their most optimistic work since Bilingual if not Very). The colour blocks hark back to the multicoloured stripes of “Introspective”, which itself presumably references various gay rights and peace flags (or maybe just the test card). Popjustice tried to recreate the Very swish out of Starburst fruits, which worked rather well. It’s definitely a design improvement on the grim shadow and darkness of “Fundamental”.

Summary

In summary, this is a charming album with some outstanding moments. Xenomania have made it smooth, light and poppy – all of which are fine things. But it lacks the dark grandeur or epic pretensions of the Boys’ best work, and in my view is the poorer for it. True, “you don’t need a super car to get far” - but sometimes I miss the sheer power and acceleration of an “Integral” or an “S&G Show”. There is one towering obelisk of a track – “The way it used to be” and one barn-stormer, being the fabulous “Pandemonium”. The rest is accomplished, but unmemorable. “Yes” is a high quality album, and essential for any PSB loyalist - but in the final analysis it falls short of being a classic. 

(c) 2009 WestOcean

Welcome to London, 1987.

Two men, impeccably dressed in black tie, greet you.

A young Neil Francis Tennant, lead singer of an edgy, breakthrough dance-pop act known as the Pet Shop Boys, yawns at you from the cover of the album. It’s been a late night. His fellow band-member, Christopher Sean Lowe, who is virtually unrecognisable without his trademark baseball cap and shades, looks the camera straight in the eye.

So it’s a bland enough album cover with an almost self-deprecating, embarrassed, title: “Pet Shop Boys, actually”. Looks can deceive. Get ready to go on a storming, energy-laden musical journey back in time.

One More Chance

A shimmering keyboard and screeching car, with an insistent percussion, opens up the album. The street scenes build into the opening scene-setter lyric: “The city is quiet, too cold to walk alone...” The sense of urgency and pain is palpable. “Someone’s been talking, and I’ve got the blame... Change friend, you know what I mean... Push me in a corner and I’ll scream!”

A biting chorus of Eighties electro-pop then greets you. This song is all about escape, freedom and the desire to run away, fleeing to New York, running away through bridges and tunnels. Why are they running away? What are they running from? This song sinks its hooks in and doesn’t let go. Neil’s voice is normally unflappable, deadpan – but here you can feel the current of raw emotion.

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Beautiful interpolated harmonies here between Neil and the legendary Dusty Springfield who is the guest vocalist. The PSB lyrics are almost sublimely poetic: “You bought me drinks, you bought me flowers, I read you books, we talked for hours” and this is a melodic, pretty track. It again touches upon the pervasive themes of money, transactions and failed love that haunt so much of this album.

Shopping

This thumping track, with its repetitive and merciless disco hooks, twists the knife into 1980s consumerist culture in general and Margaret Thatcher’s policy of privatisation in particular. “We’re buying and selling your history. ...There’s a big bang in the City, we’re all on the make. .. I heard it in the House of Commons, everything’s for sale”. Like “Opportunities”, it captures the spirit of the late Eighties financial boom even while skewering everything it stood for.

Rent

A controversial track because of the obvious allusion in the title, but it can surely be viewed as a heartbreaking story of economic subjugation and dependence in any relationship. Liza Minnelli, by the way, provided a fantastic cover on “Results”. It reminds me of the Marxist concept of “rent”, and the idea that capitalism can reduce human value to a market transaction.

The gentle synthesiser and wistful keyboard belie a sad state of affairs: “Look at my hopes, look at my dreams, the currency we spent... I love you, you pay my rent”. The melody is beautiful, but the lyrics speak of tragedy.

Hit music

A slice of compelling 1980s disco synthesiser – but in my view, this has dated more than other tracks on the album. It’s eminently forgettable.

It couldn’t happen here

The eponymous track from the surreal Pet Shop Boys film, It Couldn’t Happen Here. Perhaps it references the classic wartime occupation film of the same name; maybe it is a dirge about the spread of AIDS. To be honest, I have no idea. This song has a filmic, orchestral quality which may appeal to some. Quite honestly, I find it slow and rather tedious. Not a stand-out track on the album.

It’s a sin

The climax of the album – an overblown, extravagant electro-pop romp in which Tennant (raised a Catholic) confesses all to the world. This song was of course a club smash and mainstream hit, beginning with a space shuttle countdown and ending with the penitent (or rather wilfully impenitent) Neil Tennant reciting his “Confiteor”, or Catholic confession, in Latin. At first this hits you as a stunning, dramatic song but if it’s over-played, it does lose its power.

I Want To Wake Up

For my money, this is another of the dragging, tedious tracks on the album with a heavy, almost industrial sound and a love triangle worthy of New Order. The Pet Shop Boys have written some of the sharpest, irony-dripping lyrics in the music business. However, “To fall in love, is it so uncool?” isn’t amongst them.

Heart

Catchy, addictive, this is a slice of polished Eighties pop art that drags you in from the first sonic bursts. This sure-fire hit smashed into the charts and reached number one for three weeks in April 1988. Neil’s deadpan delivery - “If I didn’t love you, I would look around for someone else” – is at its finest coupled with the biting, riveting but sharply controlled synthesiser rhythms on this track. It’s fantastic.

King’s Cross

This track is a bleak, dystopic vision of urban (and moral) decay. It acquired a new poignancy after the King’s Cross tube station fire later that year. “You wake up in the morning and there’s still no guarantee...” Coming after the synthesiser adrenalin rush of some of the earlier tracks, this is a depressing and suitably miserabilist finale to the album.

“Actually” sold over four million copies and is the Pet Shop Boys’ second highest selling album of all time. You can also buy the Enhanced Limited Edition with a second disc and ton of extra tracks but this review has focused on the line-up of the original edition.

Twenty-two years later, “Actually” holds its own as a faithful portrait of the age, capturing the squalor, sudden wealth and broken dreams of Eighties Britain. This album showcases the Pet Shop Boys at a time when they were most contemporary, urgent and abrasive. Buying “Actually” is a form of music time travel. Enjoy the journey.

(c) WestOcean 2009

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