Pet Shop Boys, now in their 35th year, return with their 13th album proper with Stuart Price (who has worked with Madonna, The Killers and Kylie amongst others) on main production duties for the second album in a row. The band have never really put forward a naff album for public consumption, but they have also struggled regain the heights reached by their early albums.
Opening on a harder dance beat than you’d normally expect with Happiness, we’re welcomed to Super with a clean, metronomic portion of synth dance pop, a slice of bread with Pet Shop Boys marmite spread all over it. To a fan like me, it’s got everything you’d want, but it’s unlikely to garner the band a new generation of fans. Then we’re into lead single The Pop Kids, and, well, it’s more of the same really. A more involved lyric with a wistful look back to younger days. I can’t agree with the sentiment “that rock was overrated”; to me rock is a far more inventive musical form of art than Pet Shop Boy’s brand of electronica, but when done well their electronica always entertains, and for at least two songs on this album you can say it’s done well. Twenty Something is a superior slice of euro (vision) pop – it’s an ABBA riff over another reflective lyric, and the quality-ometer needle stays at the good end of the scale. On paper, Groovy has a shallow and empty lyric, but Pet Shop Boys always dealt squarely with irony. Musically it’s a tribute to their younger selves. I think it’s taking the rise out of modern instant celebrity status as fuelled by reality TV.
The Dictator Decides imagines Bashar al-Assad or Kim Jong-un into a place where they’ve lost the will “to threaten and kill”. Five tracks in and I’m hearing a harder edge to the Pet Shop Boys than I’ve heard for many a year, and a bit more breadth in the lyrics too. Pazzo! at least musically carries this approach on, though lyrically there’s little depth. There’s been many a song about madness or sanity that lyrically do it better than this one. It should really have been an instrumental. Inner Sanctum is also all crashing beats and electro pulses and is virtually an instrumental and it is reminiscent of the also recently returned Underworld, and if that’s what Pet Shop Boys are aiming for on this collection, then they’re pulling it off quite well. Despite their earlier protestations, Undertow is dressed with a pretty typical rock lyric. In fact, it’s a fairly typical rock song, just wearing electro-pop clothes. Imagine it as an 80s Bon Jovi anthem, you’ll see what I mean. This is not a criticism, it works pretty well and the needle of quality is still wriggling around nearer the upper end of the scale.
Sad Robot World leads us into the album’s closing third with more fully realised synthpop designs. There is sympathy and even empathy for manufacturing robots (“I thought I heard one crying”). The musical accompaniment is toned down to what you’d expect for the subject matter. It’s a simple but spot on song and Super is beginning to emerge as a superior Pet Shop Boys album. Say It To Me and Burn edge on with the harder beat, and even a promise to burn this disco down. And then they disappear Into Thin Air, a song of escape built over a shuddering percussive beat.
And so, this is a very good Pet Shop Boys album, the best since the glory days, but will it draw you in for repeated listens? Perhaps not, but then a quality book is rarely re-read, and this is definitely a good read.
Author – Ian, Romford store
