Yes, Pet Shop Boys. (the first forum review) UPDATED
Posted: Thu 22 Jan 2009, 12:40 am
FWIW, I'm still not entirely sure it's not too early to be posting my review of the new album, Yes, Pet Shop Boys.
Popjustice waited three weeks before posting theirs, and I get the feeling they wouldn't have minded waiting a bit longer until the songs manage to get under your skin a bit more. I think that this is the crux of the matter, because even though about three or four of the songs are quite radio friendly and full of hooks, I take absolutely ages to get into albums, never liking anything until I've played the whole thing about 50 times.
But I shall go through each track one by one and give my thoughts. I won't call it a fully fledged review, but seeing as the magazine review I've been commissioned to write has apparently been chopped down to a paltry 200 words due to advertising (bah), I thought I'd write some stuff here, however brief...
1. LOVE ETC
God, I see what they mean about not sounding like anything PSB have done before, vocally at least! Funnily enough, this lead track and lead single is not the most immediate song on the album but it does have that contemporary 'swing' quality to it that would probably get the boys playlisted on Radio 1 (no mean feat). I have to say, Neil's vocals on this (and several other tracks) are not particularly decipherable - I could just about make out a few lines like "You don't need a big car to drive your wife and lover" but the overall sound is intriguing.
The opening set of treated vocals I thought sounded quite weak and fey (I'm not using the 'C' word, right?) but the first verse is nice if unremarkable. Something about "where the sun doesn't shine" - it's all very low-key, with a treated Neil vocal over the heavily percussive swing beat layered with a nice slightly tinny synth line that sounds slightly seedy and reminds me of Soft Cell (particularly the 1991 re-recording of Tainted Love) or even (Gasp! Shock! Horror! - let's get this out of the way right now) ...dare I say their name... Erasure.
But the ageing understatement is obviously a deliberate ploy to lull you into a false sense of security, which succeeds in making the sound of the posturing macho male chorus of (I'm guessing) Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and cohorts when they burst in all the more shocking. I kid you not, it really is totally and utterly Chumbawumba's Tubthumping, with another pub full of leering lager louts thrown into the mix.
One thing is for sure, for the first single, the powers that be could have gone for two or possibly three tracks from Yes that sound completely and utterly what the public would expect from the PSB, and they haven't gone for the easy option at all. It's certainly not a bad song at all, and the choruses are very rousing and extremely catchy. If I could only understand exactly what they are singing I'd have the lyrics firmly tattooed on the brain already.
2. ALL OVER THE WORLD
I still don't know what to make of this. Maybe I need to upgrade my sound system, but to these ears it sounds a bit clunking, and the Tchaikovsky sample sounds slightly gratuitous and the way it thunders in and out throughout the song just seems to complicate a rather messy mix even further. I think I'd prefer it without it. It's happy and clappy, but I just can't really get into the song yet. Sorry and all that.
3. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
I really don't understand why this has had such a bad press so far. OK, so the chorus rips off Jarvis Cocker's big moment, but I find this quite a stirring piece of music. With lines bundling "perfect kids" together with a "life on the skids" you can quite easily tell it has been written as a potential TV theme, and it's a real shame Jonathan Harvey didn't use it for his programme of the same name (though JH claims the music selection was out of his hands). The music has a nice Morricone meets Bacharach vibe - in other words VERY 60s, and the closing string quartet 'semi' ender is kind of like My October Symphony in March.
4. DID YOU SEE ME COMING
Nice acoustic intro from Marr. Actually, the whole song could quite easily have been something Johnny concocted with Bernard Sumner in Electronic - if it wasn't for Neil's effete vocals that is. The lyrics mention DNA, but like several songs on this album, the vocals sound slightly over-processed. To these ears, it sounds like an outtake from Bilingual that didn't make the grade because it was too poppy and not latin enough (I've always tried to pretend the lacklustre Saturday Night Forever doesn't exist, OK?!) - in other words this would sound great on commercial radio, and especially at G-A-Y. At the mo, Did You See Me Coming is the one I've got in my head constantly. And no, that wasn't an intentional double entendre. Honest.
5. VULNERABLE
Quite a nice track, very electronic, and brimming with Neil's insecurities, bemoaning "I'm so vulnerable without you". Some nice piano flourishes though they've maybe overdone it on the autotune. Not fantastic but not bad either. I would say that Vulnerable is a distant cousin of Casanova In Hell - it has a nice crisp and electronic ballad feel without the orchestral MOR feel of Luna Park or Indefinite Leave To Remain.
6. MORE THAN A DREAM
This is Neil's 'journey' song, with him "driving through the night" now he's proudly passed his test in middle age. I love Marr's plucky guitar bit, and, after a couple of minutes, there's some great squelchy rave synths and very 90s keys. It's quite an 'up' song and with the insistent melody, it could possibly work as a single.
7. BUILDING A WALL
Oh Dear. I had high hopes for this one, seeing as Neil's singing part of the song in his barely used lower register that I'm particularly fond of, and the chorus is quite pleasant. But it's completely and utterly spoiled by into this ridiculous "protection/detention" refrain duet with Chris that pops up a couple of times - absolutely cringeworthy stuff. It's hard to work out whether they're being deliberately naff and cheesy. I like to think so. Whatever the motive, it's crap.
Gets a bit better in the second half with a surreal spoken interlude complete with birdy noises and "wasps in your tea", I kid you not (WTF is Neil on?!). Not only that, but this forum's Undertaker will no doubt be somewhat bemused that with the inclusion of this track, Yes is now the second PSB album in a row to give a shout out to his online moniker. Just how much of this board has Neil been reading? Didn't the KLF tell him it's grim up north?
8. KING OF ROME
Going somewhat south, is this a paean to Caesar The Diva by any chance?
Starts off very downbeat and orchestral, and the pace doesn't really pick up, but it is a rather beautiful track - by far the closest thing on the album to anything on Behaviour - in fact, with French horns in tow, if they'd reworked Only The Wind with the Battleship Potemkin orchestra then this is what it would sound like, only slightly less flatulent. Nice Bacharachy loungy feel and a brief acoustic break from Marr. The only downside is some howlers on the lyrical side. I really do think Neil can do so much better than rhyming "desert moon" with "blue lagoon" but it's still a pretty nice song.
9. PANDEMONIUM
Starts with some great clubby beats, plenty of bottom end and quite euphoric. You can definitely hear the Xenomania input on this, but, very intriguingly, it sounds like one of Richard X's poppier productions for the likes of Rachel Stevens. I like the brief hints of harmonica again (it's the second Yes song to feature it), a short chorus and, best of all, the opening line has to be heard to be believed - "Is this a riot or are you just pleased to see me?" Very catchy and could easily be a single. I like.
10. THE WAY IT USED TO BE
As the title suggests, this is full of reflection and yearning for the past and lost love. I suppose, in a way, you could say it sounds like a Nightlife-era polished PSB demo for Girls Aloud doing Dusty doing Goin' Back for the Noughties. And like so many PSB tracks this decade, it starts immediately on a great high but soon descends into a minor key by the time the vocals kick in. Although the song is constantly looking back, it's much more upbeat in its outlook than, say, I Made My Excuses - "So much time has passed - I'll still meet you anywhere" and "I've survived with only memories." The second half has some nice squiggly keyboards and a bit where Neil then comes over all psycho bunnyboiler where his vocals sound like a Dalek! Very elegiac and poignant all the same.
11. LEGACY
With talk of gathering "an army in the North, from York to the Firth Of Forth", without checking the history books I'd guess it's possibly referencing the British Civil War or the War Of The Roses - one of Neil's historical epics, then, but without any of the epic quality of his previous efforts. Lyrically it's rather gauche and clumsy with awful rhymes such as "the old man agonised, he really has compromised." It just plods and meanders long without really going anywhere, least of all north of the border, until a quite bonkers fairgroundy circus instrumental break that sounds like a rejected interlude from Britney or Take That's latest, but, blimey, this seems to drag on forever...
Mind you, bring things up to date, the line about the Carphone Warehouse teen had me laughing out loud, but for all the wrong reasons: "Give him a ring and he'll explain why." Hmm, is that Roundhead Neil being fruity again? He can't resist sticking a bit of brown love in where it's not always needed eh? At least the song does end with a good, firm finish (like Did You See Me Coming) rather than a lazy, uninspired fade out (unlike the rest of Yes), with some nice orchestral touches, but even so, Legacy is a bit of a damp squib to end on, I must say.
EDIT: Seems to be referencing William Wallace and his taking of York in 1297.
Listening again, it's almost trying to be This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave for the middle ages, but with all the evocative pathos and beauty replaced by ponderous pretension and a hammy set of lyrics that would give Pinky & Perky a run for their bacon. At the moment, certainly, it's in my top 10 most hated PSB, which is a real shame as I quite like the ominous doomy opening (reminds me of that long intro to A Red Letter Day they cut from Bilingual), and in the main it has the type of lower-register Neil vocal that I always prefer for the slower numbers, rich and breathy, kind of wintry - think Birthday Boy is Dreaming Of The Queen while listening to The Doors' The End.
As I mentioned, I find almost all albums underwhelming for the first month or so, so don't be too worried. Apart from one or two tracks, it's not quite the magical mix of Behaviour and Very I was hoping for, but neither is it a bad album at all. I can hear brief flashes of several other PSB works in there too, particularly Fundamental* and Nightlife, which is no bad thing in my book, and obviously BP on King Of Rome, as well as flashes of the first Electronic album here and there.
OK, FWIW here's my marks out of ten, but they're liable to change, and have already done so. Notice that, so far, I'm quite partial to the three Xenomania co-writes (how telling is it that all three are easily in the top five highest rated?), though I don't think The Way Things Used To Be sounds much like a single at all - though a shiny Girls Aloud backing vocal may have made a difference. Where are the Fab Five? I was hoping for at least a couple of guest post returning the favour for a rather special pop duo they claim they "all love."
LOVE ETC - 7.5
ALL OVER THE WORLD - 4
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE - 6
DID YOU SEE ME COMING - 7
VULNERABLE - 5
MORE THAN A DREAM - 8
BUILDING A WALL - 3
KING OF ROME - 7
PANDEMONIUM - 8.5
THE WAY IT USED TO BE - 8
LEGACY - 2
Running time 48.59.
Popjustice waited three weeks before posting theirs, and I get the feeling they wouldn't have minded waiting a bit longer until the songs manage to get under your skin a bit more. I think that this is the crux of the matter, because even though about three or four of the songs are quite radio friendly and full of hooks, I take absolutely ages to get into albums, never liking anything until I've played the whole thing about 50 times.
But I shall go through each track one by one and give my thoughts. I won't call it a fully fledged review, but seeing as the magazine review I've been commissioned to write has apparently been chopped down to a paltry 200 words due to advertising (bah), I thought I'd write some stuff here, however brief...
1. LOVE ETC
God, I see what they mean about not sounding like anything PSB have done before, vocally at least! Funnily enough, this lead track and lead single is not the most immediate song on the album but it does have that contemporary 'swing' quality to it that would probably get the boys playlisted on Radio 1 (no mean feat). I have to say, Neil's vocals on this (and several other tracks) are not particularly decipherable - I could just about make out a few lines like "You don't need a big car to drive your wife and lover" but the overall sound is intriguing.
The opening set of treated vocals I thought sounded quite weak and fey (I'm not using the 'C' word, right?) but the first verse is nice if unremarkable. Something about "where the sun doesn't shine" - it's all very low-key, with a treated Neil vocal over the heavily percussive swing beat layered with a nice slightly tinny synth line that sounds slightly seedy and reminds me of Soft Cell (particularly the 1991 re-recording of Tainted Love) or even (Gasp! Shock! Horror! - let's get this out of the way right now) ...dare I say their name... Erasure.
But the ageing understatement is obviously a deliberate ploy to lull you into a false sense of security, which succeeds in making the sound of the posturing macho male chorus of (I'm guessing) Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and cohorts when they burst in all the more shocking. I kid you not, it really is totally and utterly Chumbawumba's Tubthumping, with another pub full of leering lager louts thrown into the mix.
One thing is for sure, for the first single, the powers that be could have gone for two or possibly three tracks from Yes that sound completely and utterly what the public would expect from the PSB, and they haven't gone for the easy option at all. It's certainly not a bad song at all, and the choruses are very rousing and extremely catchy. If I could only understand exactly what they are singing I'd have the lyrics firmly tattooed on the brain already.
2. ALL OVER THE WORLD
I still don't know what to make of this. Maybe I need to upgrade my sound system, but to these ears it sounds a bit clunking, and the Tchaikovsky sample sounds slightly gratuitous and the way it thunders in and out throughout the song just seems to complicate a rather messy mix even further. I think I'd prefer it without it. It's happy and clappy, but I just can't really get into the song yet. Sorry and all that.
3. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
I really don't understand why this has had such a bad press so far. OK, so the chorus rips off Jarvis Cocker's big moment, but I find this quite a stirring piece of music. With lines bundling "perfect kids" together with a "life on the skids" you can quite easily tell it has been written as a potential TV theme, and it's a real shame Jonathan Harvey didn't use it for his programme of the same name (though JH claims the music selection was out of his hands). The music has a nice Morricone meets Bacharach vibe - in other words VERY 60s, and the closing string quartet 'semi' ender is kind of like My October Symphony in March.
4. DID YOU SEE ME COMING
Nice acoustic intro from Marr. Actually, the whole song could quite easily have been something Johnny concocted with Bernard Sumner in Electronic - if it wasn't for Neil's effete vocals that is. The lyrics mention DNA, but like several songs on this album, the vocals sound slightly over-processed. To these ears, it sounds like an outtake from Bilingual that didn't make the grade because it was too poppy and not latin enough (I've always tried to pretend the lacklustre Saturday Night Forever doesn't exist, OK?!) - in other words this would sound great on commercial radio, and especially at G-A-Y. At the mo, Did You See Me Coming is the one I've got in my head constantly. And no, that wasn't an intentional double entendre. Honest.
5. VULNERABLE
Quite a nice track, very electronic, and brimming with Neil's insecurities, bemoaning "I'm so vulnerable without you". Some nice piano flourishes though they've maybe overdone it on the autotune. Not fantastic but not bad either. I would say that Vulnerable is a distant cousin of Casanova In Hell - it has a nice crisp and electronic ballad feel without the orchestral MOR feel of Luna Park or Indefinite Leave To Remain.
6. MORE THAN A DREAM
This is Neil's 'journey' song, with him "driving through the night" now he's proudly passed his test in middle age. I love Marr's plucky guitar bit, and, after a couple of minutes, there's some great squelchy rave synths and very 90s keys. It's quite an 'up' song and with the insistent melody, it could possibly work as a single.
7. BUILDING A WALL
Oh Dear. I had high hopes for this one, seeing as Neil's singing part of the song in his barely used lower register that I'm particularly fond of, and the chorus is quite pleasant. But it's completely and utterly spoiled by into this ridiculous "protection/detention" refrain duet with Chris that pops up a couple of times - absolutely cringeworthy stuff. It's hard to work out whether they're being deliberately naff and cheesy. I like to think so. Whatever the motive, it's crap.
Gets a bit better in the second half with a surreal spoken interlude complete with birdy noises and "wasps in your tea", I kid you not (WTF is Neil on?!). Not only that, but this forum's Undertaker will no doubt be somewhat bemused that with the inclusion of this track, Yes is now the second PSB album in a row to give a shout out to his online moniker. Just how much of this board has Neil been reading? Didn't the KLF tell him it's grim up north?
8. KING OF ROME
Going somewhat south, is this a paean to Caesar The Diva by any chance?
Starts off very downbeat and orchestral, and the pace doesn't really pick up, but it is a rather beautiful track - by far the closest thing on the album to anything on Behaviour - in fact, with French horns in tow, if they'd reworked Only The Wind with the Battleship Potemkin orchestra then this is what it would sound like, only slightly less flatulent. Nice Bacharachy loungy feel and a brief acoustic break from Marr. The only downside is some howlers on the lyrical side. I really do think Neil can do so much better than rhyming "desert moon" with "blue lagoon" but it's still a pretty nice song.9. PANDEMONIUM
Starts with some great clubby beats, plenty of bottom end and quite euphoric. You can definitely hear the Xenomania input on this, but, very intriguingly, it sounds like one of Richard X's poppier productions for the likes of Rachel Stevens. I like the brief hints of harmonica again (it's the second Yes song to feature it), a short chorus and, best of all, the opening line has to be heard to be believed - "Is this a riot or are you just pleased to see me?" Very catchy and could easily be a single. I like.
10. THE WAY IT USED TO BE
As the title suggests, this is full of reflection and yearning for the past and lost love. I suppose, in a way, you could say it sounds like a Nightlife-era polished PSB demo for Girls Aloud doing Dusty doing Goin' Back for the Noughties. And like so many PSB tracks this decade, it starts immediately on a great high but soon descends into a minor key by the time the vocals kick in. Although the song is constantly looking back, it's much more upbeat in its outlook than, say, I Made My Excuses - "So much time has passed - I'll still meet you anywhere" and "I've survived with only memories." The second half has some nice squiggly keyboards and a bit where Neil then comes over all psycho bunnyboiler where his vocals sound like a Dalek! Very elegiac and poignant all the same.
11. LEGACY
With talk of gathering "an army in the North, from York to the Firth Of Forth", without checking the history books I'd guess it's possibly referencing the British Civil War or the War Of The Roses - one of Neil's historical epics, then, but without any of the epic quality of his previous efforts. Lyrically it's rather gauche and clumsy with awful rhymes such as "the old man agonised, he really has compromised." It just plods and meanders long without really going anywhere, least of all north of the border, until a quite bonkers fairgroundy circus instrumental break that sounds like a rejected interlude from Britney or Take That's latest, but, blimey, this seems to drag on forever...
Mind you, bring things up to date, the line about the Carphone Warehouse teen had me laughing out loud, but for all the wrong reasons: "Give him a ring and he'll explain why." Hmm, is that Roundhead Neil being fruity again? He can't resist sticking a bit of brown love in where it's not always needed eh? At least the song does end with a good, firm finish (like Did You See Me Coming) rather than a lazy, uninspired fade out (unlike the rest of Yes), with some nice orchestral touches, but even so, Legacy is a bit of a damp squib to end on, I must say.
EDIT: Seems to be referencing William Wallace and his taking of York in 1297.
Listening again, it's almost trying to be This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave for the middle ages, but with all the evocative pathos and beauty replaced by ponderous pretension and a hammy set of lyrics that would give Pinky & Perky a run for their bacon. At the moment, certainly, it's in my top 10 most hated PSB, which is a real shame as I quite like the ominous doomy opening (reminds me of that long intro to A Red Letter Day they cut from Bilingual), and in the main it has the type of lower-register Neil vocal that I always prefer for the slower numbers, rich and breathy, kind of wintry - think Birthday Boy is Dreaming Of The Queen while listening to The Doors' The End.
As I mentioned, I find almost all albums underwhelming for the first month or so, so don't be too worried. Apart from one or two tracks, it's not quite the magical mix of Behaviour and Very I was hoping for, but neither is it a bad album at all. I can hear brief flashes of several other PSB works in there too, particularly Fundamental* and Nightlife, which is no bad thing in my book, and obviously BP on King Of Rome, as well as flashes of the first Electronic album here and there.
OK, FWIW here's my marks out of ten, but they're liable to change, and have already done so. Notice that, so far, I'm quite partial to the three Xenomania co-writes (how telling is it that all three are easily in the top five highest rated?), though I don't think The Way Things Used To Be sounds much like a single at all - though a shiny Girls Aloud backing vocal may have made a difference. Where are the Fab Five? I was hoping for at least a couple of guest post returning the favour for a rather special pop duo they claim they "all love."
LOVE ETC - 7.5
ALL OVER THE WORLD - 4
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE - 6
DID YOU SEE ME COMING - 7
VULNERABLE - 5
MORE THAN A DREAM - 8
BUILDING A WALL - 3
KING OF ROME - 7
PANDEMONIUM - 8.5
THE WAY IT USED TO BE - 8
LEGACY - 2
Running time 48.59.
