Pet Shop Boys commentary

It’s quite interesting that this link has surfaced now, because just lately the Pet Shop Boys’ first album, Please, has been on my mind a bit. I’m not a huge fan of the band, and never paid much attention to anything after this album, but it does have a place in my heart. It was one of the records I used to sneak into my brother’s room and play at that joyous point in my early teens when I’d just discovered the record player. And just lately, for some unknown reason, I’ve had a hankering to listen to some of it again, in particular the non-singles Love Comes Quickly and Later Tonight, which even my naive prepubescent mind realised had sinister undertones.

As I say, I haven’t enjoyed much they’ve done since, and I would probably have dismissed them by now as bland popsters were it not for their performance of West End Girls on Top Of The Pops, which I caught a repeat of a couple of years ago. By that time I’d spent a while experimenting with synths, drum machines, etc. and I was astounded: it was live, it was stripped down and strung out, it seemed like they were improvising a new mix on the spot, and it sounded absolutely excellent to my techno-attuned ears. Highly impressive for the day, and a foreshadowing of their later more overt dance orientation, I guess. Since that point I’ve had a quiet respect for their ability if not their later releases.

Then Julie comes along and dismisses them with “I don’t like his voice”. Chicks, huh?