On the Shelf 99: Pet Shop Boys
Sep. 8th, 2013 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23The Pet Shop Boys have a new album called Electric (which is popular this year apparently, so does Richard Thompson, and OMD's reunion disc is called English Electric).
I wanted to make some kind of grand statement about how I almost gave up on the PSBs.
But, I haven't..
Which is amazing. Twelve albums and 27 years in, I've followed (largely) their every move.
It's something I can't really get my head around. The only other artist I can think of that was in my favorite list of artists at age 12 and never left is Bruce Springsteen. Really, I have a hard time thinking of another one (Billy Idol hasn't been relevant in years. Duran Duran still make music I like, but have had hiatuses and some real lows. Sting- still relevant, but I have long given up on. Prince? Maybe, but I never appreciated him until I was far into my teens.)
Surely, you wouldn't have predicted it. Maybe a career trajectory closer to The Fixx (who seemed more likely)- break-ups, nostalgia festivals, and little noticed (however critically acclaimed) reunion albums.
Still, the PSBs have soldiered on, and whenever it looked like they were done, they were off in a slightly different direction.
No doubt my favorite Pet Shop Boys are when they are at their danciest, and as you can guess, where I am headed with this, is to say I like them very much on Very.
So maybe no surprise, that Iam digging the new album a lot, because it's in a similar vein. in a lot of ways, the live 2010 album Pandemonium was what kept me interested, and this album is in that direction as well.
It's not perfect. It is a party album, and for the most part it is more LMFAO than Morrissey- songs about the weekend instead of songs about irony. Not that there isn't both- the best song on the album "Love is a Bourgeois Construct" is classic Tennant and Lowe songwriting.
It lacks the hit single ("Construct" is close), but as a group of songs, it's strong. It also probably suffers in comparison to its competition (Daft Punk, will probably be inevitable). It is still the band's best album in quite some time.
I wanted to make some kind of grand statement about how I almost gave up on the PSBs.
But, I haven't..
Which is amazing. Twelve albums and 27 years in, I've followed (largely) their every move.
It's something I can't really get my head around. The only other artist I can think of that was in my favorite list of artists at age 12 and never left is Bruce Springsteen. Really, I have a hard time thinking of another one (Billy Idol hasn't been relevant in years. Duran Duran still make music I like, but have had hiatuses and some real lows. Sting- still relevant, but I have long given up on. Prince? Maybe, but I never appreciated him until I was far into my teens.)
Surely, you wouldn't have predicted it. Maybe a career trajectory closer to The Fixx (who seemed more likely)- break-ups, nostalgia festivals, and little noticed (however critically acclaimed) reunion albums.
Still, the PSBs have soldiered on, and whenever it looked like they were done, they were off in a slightly different direction.
No doubt my favorite Pet Shop Boys are when they are at their danciest, and as you can guess, where I am headed with this, is to say I like them very much on Very.
So maybe no surprise, that Iam digging the new album a lot, because it's in a similar vein. in a lot of ways, the live 2010 album Pandemonium was what kept me interested, and this album is in that direction as well.
It's not perfect. It is a party album, and for the most part it is more LMFAO than Morrissey- songs about the weekend instead of songs about irony. Not that there isn't both- the best song on the album "Love is a Bourgeois Construct" is classic Tennant and Lowe songwriting.
It lacks the hit single ("Construct" is close), but as a group of songs, it's strong. It also probably suffers in comparison to its competition (Daft Punk, will probably be inevitable). It is still the band's best album in quite some time.
