Of all of the electro-pop duos that started this decade, Pet Shop Boys are probably the one with the most longevity – in fact they’re still going. This in some ways feels like a late entry into the electro-pop genre, coming at a time of the decade where thrash metal and proto-Indie seem to be dominating, but it’s a nice change of pace. If they did seem out of time, it’s because some of the tracks on here were started in 1982.
Partly why Chris (Lowe) and Neil (Tennant) lasted as well as they did, I think, is that they managed to find quite a good balance between camp showmanship and biting social comment in their lyrics and a mix of cold electronic irony mixed with genuine heart in the music. In the tradition of electro-pop duos, Lowe is the man behind the keyboards and computers, Tennant the singer and showman at the front.
Rent, for example, one of the singles from the album, includes the chorus - “I love you, you pay my rent”, a mix of transactional exchange with romantic naivete. The other big singles from here are It’s A Sin and What Have I Done To Deserve This?, both more inward-looking and vaguely tongue-in-cheek observations on the feeling of being adrift or lost, possibly a slightly metaphorical examination of being gay in Thatcher’s Britain.
And talking of Thatcher’s Britain, Shopping is an excellent Kraftwerk-esque swipe at Thatcherite deregulated privatisation, with venture capitalists and city boys going “shopping” for national assets, and probably about as satirical and political as Pet Shop Boys get. This was quite fun, and Shopping in particular had a very nice angular regularity to the electronica.
[Added in later edit, sad to learn that we lost another one of the 1001 Albums family, one of the few artists I really liked from a genre that doesn't grab me much, and by all accounts a lovely person too. Rather charmingly, when I went to Google an image of her, there was an animation of a swarm of butterflies.]
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