With their second album, Actually, the Pet Shop Boys perfected their melodic, detached dance-pop. Where most of Please was dominated by the beats, the rhythms on Actually are part of a series of intricate arrangements that create a glamorous but disposable backdrop for Neil Tennant's tales of isolation, boredom, money, and loneliness. Not only are the arrangements more accomplished, but the songs themselves are more striking, incorporating a strong sense of melody, as evidenced by "What Have I Done to Deserve This?," a duet with Dusty Springfield. Tennant's lyrics are clever and direct, chronicling the lives and times of urban, lonely, and bored yuppies of the late '80s. And the fact that dance-pop is considered a disposable medium by most mainstream critics and listeners only increases the reserved emotional undercurrent of Actually, as well as its irony.
Looking back at the 35 years since Neil Tennant left England's Smash Hits magazine to form the Pet Shop Boys with Chris Lowe, the two-CD Popart opens itself up for arguments while surpassing 1991's Discography as the ready-to-wear selection. All the growing up and becoming more emotionally focused the duo did post-Discography could have yielded a dour hits collection, but putting new tracks like the plaintive "I Get Along" between the slick chestnuts "West End Girls" and "So Hard" works to the listener's advantage. The tropical and wistful "Single-Bilingual" and the clever and melancholy "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" add more latter-day treasures that Discography couldn't include, and the only thing left to do besides submit is argue about the details. One disc is full of "Pop" moments and the other "Art," but just try and figure out the criteria. The two new songs (the austere electro of "Miracles" and the fair "Flamboyant") are nice enough but they're not as fully formed as their surroundings, making them obvious late additions. A little bit of text and history in the liner notes would have helped, and fans should be aware most of the tracks here appear in album versions rather than single mixes. Of course, compilers need to make decisions and bookending the collection with the ultracamp and semiflippant covers of "Go West" and "Somewhere" could be seen as a comment on how listeners shouldn't worry so much and just enjoy. Regardless of omissions and decisions, Popart is an excellent, hang-together listen and a better representation of the duo's career than Discography. [Upon Popart's release, a limited edition was available with an extra disc of remixes from Moby, Sasha, Danny Tenaglia, and others.]
Behaviour is arguably Pet Shop Boys' best album -- rivaled by the one that followed it, Very -- so it's appropriate that it's paired with the best "further listening" component available in the reissue series. This is certainly a byproduct of the duo's high creativity between 1990-1991, but it's also a smartly selected, sharply assembled album in its own merit, containing several of the group's very best non-LP songs -- "It Must Be Obvious," "Miserablism," "Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend," and the anthemic "DJ Culture" -- which are sequenced between many fine extended mixes, including one of "Where the Streets Have No Name"/"I Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Several of these mixes are for songs not on the album as well ("We All Feel Better in the Dark," "Was It Worth It?," and "Music for Boys"), which give the record additional value, since these are different versions than those on Alternative. But even if you have that record, the richness and very flow of this installment of "further listening" makes this expanded edition perhaps the most essential of all the 2001 PSB reissues.
Alternative, a double-CD set, does much more for PSB fans than Discography. The former not only covers songs/mixes usually found solely on singles as b-sides, but it covers a greater portion of their career. Collectively, the 36 songs on Alternative show us a different side of the Pet Shop Boys--a side that is more experimental, and yet, more personal - that previous albums have not shown. Lowe remarks, "We've always used the b-side as a way of learning to produce. When we started, the b-side was where we learned to do things ourselves. So it wasn't a throwaway, ever. It's been fundamental to how we progress."
This compilation is a showcase of that progression, which becomes more evident upon comparing old and new tracks. "That's My Impression", one of the Boys' first songs, seems rather flat next to the vibrant "Euroboy" or the eerie "Some Speculation". But upon closer inspection, "Impression" is really just a humorous song, no matter how serious it may sound. This is a fine example of how PSB songs can reshape themselves to fit the era or the listener's mood. "I Want A Dog", a song supposedly about loneliness, is "funny," according to Tennant, "but it's also serious and true at the same time." So in this way, no one track can really be deemed better than another--only less serious, less intense, etc.
With the lyrics they write for b-sides, Tennant and Lowe must feel like mini-psychologists or some other form of wise men. "Your Funny Uncle" is a crushingly sad song Tennant wrote about the funeral of a close friend. "We Feel Better In the Dark" is a song about
clubbing, sex, and/or ugliness. "Miserablism" is ultimately a witty put-down directed at cynicism, while "Jack the Lad" explores the advantage of being mentally unstable or ignorant. "Shameless" is one of the most gloriously satirical tunes ever ("We're shameless / we will do anything / to get our fifteen minutes of fame"). "Violence", a melancholy number, is well offset by "Losing My Mind", (also given to Liza Minelli) an upbeat song about heartbreak. From the orchestral "Overture to 'Performance'", to the song about Hitler, "Don Juan", to the experimental "The Sound of the Atom Splitting" Alternative shows us songs written via the extreme moods of Tennant and Lowe as well as songs that could just as easily be found on their "normal" albums.
Not only does Alternative give us a clearer picture of the psychology behind the music of the Pet Shop Boys (a group proudly accepting the label "pop"), but it also serves as a tapestry of club life over the past ten or so years, a "historical record of contemporary dance music," in Lowe's words. Consequently, it is one of the top five most important albums of this year and certainly belongs in the collection of anyone respecting the art of songwriting.
How can you not love an album with a cover as iconic as this? Introspective was the first Pet Shops Boys album (and 25 years later still one of the few) not to feature one of them in some shape or form on the cover, indicating that this was an altogether different proposition. And it was. Consisting of only 6 tracks it initially feels more like an EP, although as each track weighs in at at least 6 minutes, there is still plenty to enjoy. At the time, Neil Tennant marked Introspective as the end of their “Imperial Phase”, expressing disappointment when Domino Dancing, released shortly before the album, only charted at number seven while it’s two predecessors had managed to get to number one. In hindsight, he shouldn’t have worried, apparently Introspective is their second biggest selling album to date.For a brand new album, only two of the songs are original to it. I Want a Dog had already appeared as a b-side, It’s Alright and Always on My Mind were covers, while I’m Not Scared was originally written for Pasty Kensit’s Eighth Wonder. This left only Domino Dancing and Left to my Own Devices to be considered as new material.Introspective is the Pet Shops Boys at their widescreen best and it is my favourite of their albums. Although essentially a 12″ remix album the scope of the songs more than matches any of their more traditional efforts. There are two stand outs.Trevor Horn’s paws are all over opener Left To My Own Devices with it’s multi-layered orchestral sweeps and stabs, urgent bass line and insistent Italian House piano riff, while Neil’s interior monologue owes a debt to A Day in the Life. This song apparently took months to get right. It was time well spent.Always on My Mind/In My House is a rerecording of their contribution to an Elvis tribute tv programme in 1987 which became their best selling single to date and that year’s Christmas number 1. Compared to the earlier single release, this begins as a much starker affair, driven along by a bubbling, acid bass and house-y keyboard refrain missing from the original and giving more room for Neil’s vocals. However, just as the tracks begins to layer and you start to piece together the original, things get darker as the trance-y In My House appears,Introspective proudly sits alone in the PSB canon. It’s not a conventional studio album like Please, Very, Bilingual, et al. It’s not a remix album (the Disco series) nor a compilation (Discography, Alternative, PopArt, Format….) or a live set (Concrete, Pandemonium). It just is what it is. Take it or leave it. But take it. Obviously.