Insisting on irony as an essential prism, these gay heroes understand how, rather than mitigating or cheapening the lusts of their male characters, it intensifies experiences as casual as a glance exchanged or a drink bought. Here’s the story of the Pet Shop Boys. Please rules not because it’s their best: it’s because their strengths emerged so formidably.
If Lou Reed made me realize I was gay, and Bowie made me insouciant about it, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe taught me the semaphore. Until 2002’s Release they never, uh, released a dull album, and until 2012’s Elysium a bad one. Enjoying gay literary fiction is difficult because Tennant-Lowe have written the most perspicacious of my lifetime.
1. Please (1986)
With beats stiffer and vocals blanker than they would be again, Tennant and Lowe record the gayest album of their career. Anticipation is a stimulation for the guys in these songs: careerists and would-be hunks catching late trains because they want lov-ahs they’ve eyed on the dance floor. For listeners who dig concepts, Please works as a song cycle. In the last song the Tennant character even settles down with that lover but not without warning him: “You may not always love me/I may not care.”
2. Behaviour (1990)
My first PSB album. The Boys hired Harold Faltermeyer to bring disco beats, they brought the density, which included references to Shostakovich, the Russian Revolution, and Zelda Fitzgerald. The mundanity of settled gay life: the couple from “Why Don’t We Live Together?” squabble about matches left on tables and whether George Michael is as good as they think. Few albums are as grand and hushed as Behaviour — it’s their Talk Talkiest. The segue between “Nervously” and “The End of the World” is the most poignant in their repertoire.
3. Introspective (1988)
Oh wait — Pet Shop Boys already embraced lyrical density two years earlier, and you can dance to it. “I’m Not Scared,” written for Eighth Wonder, points the way. I’m a sucker for rising/falling sequencer lines.
4. Actually (1987)
In which Tennant discovers doubletracked vocals and harmonies, deepening the reach of these High Thatcher Era performances. I may prefer “Rent,” “It Couldn’t Happen Here,” and, above all, “Kings Cross” to the hit singles and underline-every-joke album track.
5. Very (1993)
A critics act since the Reagan era, PSB got universal acclaim for Neil Tennant’s newfound sexual transparency. Uh, what were “I Want a Lover,” “Why Don’t We Live Together,” “Always on My Mind,” and “Nervously”? Whatever — these are all good songs except “Liberation.” I edge closest to “Young Offender,” both prophecy and gayer than the duo’s straight boosters.
6. Nightlife (1999)
The sequel to Please, Nightlife adds fourteen years worth of arrangement wizardry: Rollo and Craig Armstrong arrange live strings around beats as well as any disco producer. Confirmed heterosexual Greil Marcus had the last word: “Here the group could be starting over from the beginning, in an ’80s nightclub, dancing to the drum machine, all possibilities of love and fear present in the way your partner looks you in the eye or over your shoulder.”
7. Fundamental (2006)
If Actually was PSB’s Thatcher album, then Fundamental takes Tony Blair’s entertainment-politics nexus and Bush worship to task. Only Trevor Horn could have made it live with orchestral counterpoint. Yet the smaller-scale songs like “I Made My Excuses and Left,” “Luna Park,” and “Indefinite Leave to Remain” could’ve emerged from any Pet Shop Boyzone. The highlight: “Minimal,” a manifesto.
8. Alternative (1995)
From “In the Night” through “Some Speculation,” these B-sides and EP album tracks shame the competition. The booklet alone is like reading Conversations With Truman Capote. Picks: “A Man Could Get Arrested,” “You Know Where You Went Wrong,” “I Get Excited (You Get Excited Too),” “Bet She’s Not Your Girlfriend,” “The Sound of the Atom Splitting,” “Decadence.”
9. Bilingual (1996)
Spoiled by ruinous sequencing, their first post-peak record shows little signs of slackening but is thin on beats. Increasingly, their electronic ballads and mid-tempo numbers would become their baubles (“A Red Letter Day,” beloved of Elton John; “To Step Aside”). And when they flirted with Please-era anonymity they displayed their mettle again: the Danny Tenaglia-produced “Before” should’ve crossed over to every pop chart in the world. Listeners worried about their Britpop affinities are directed to “The Truck Driver and His Mate.” I bought the “Before” single for this B-side.
10. Electric (2013)
And just like that, they returned, cumbersome, a little thicker, like any band asked to come up with songs that honor their history.
11. Super (2016)
Inspiration on the wane, they let Stuart Price goose up the tempos with electronic skronks and farts and whistles. “The Pop Kids,” about young people who look for Tennant-esque experiences in love and on the dance floor, sounds awkward to my ears. “Burn” sure does.
12. Yes (2009)
Their first album that feels oppressively long, Yes backs away from the thorns and briars of Fundamental. I get the impression that they worked for Xenomania because during recording they heard The Fame and knew, instantly, that Gaga was a star.
13. Nonetheless (2023)
Encroaching age starts to scare them.
14. Release (2002)
At the time their dullest release, although I understand how committed disco dollies will want to try the acoustic instruments they disparaged. I don’t find The Eminem Song as delectable anymore: while I can imagine “Marshall Mathers” vibing to this sad quiet teen fan it’s more fun to imagine him requesting the limo drive him around and around so he can enjoy “Being Boring” and “My October Symphony” like another megastar with a considerable young male fanbase.
15. Elysium (2012)
Tennant and Lowe aren’t above the jokes that formed the cornerstones of their serious work; the difference is now the duo space them out like antibiotics. In their best B-sides the titles were the start of jokes; now only the titles are funny (“Requiem In Denim and Leopardskin”)
16. Hotspot (2020)
Listening to this album at the time of its release wasn’t as poignant as a listen the month the world shut down. “Wedding in Berlin” earned the right to fantasize.
Humanizing The Vacuum 