Daily Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jh ... tleft.html
Pet Shop Boys
Fundamental
Parlophone, £12.99
If the English mood of Thatcher's 1980s were represented by a graph, you would see two lines - one soaring on a euphoria of capitalism, another plunging into ostracised despair. So it's not surprising that the decade gave us two uniquely British bands: the Smiths, and the Pet Shop Boys. The Smiths were a working-class Manchester guitar band, while the Pet Shop Boys were about middle-class electronica, and (although both members are Northern) they appealed more to the dancefloors of London. But both made a noise that told you to dance, and wrote clever, melancholic, sexually ambiguous lyrics that told you cry. The Smiths imploded over ego, Morrissey being a bit of a show-off. The Pet Shop Boys were a democratic duo whose singer had a relatively weak voice and none of Morrissey's pin-up glamour. They endured.
Now Neil Tennant (in his early fifties) and Chris Lowe (late forties) are as established a brick in English cultural life as Gilbert and George. Their names are on the donors' plaque at Tate Modern. They've performed in Trafalgar square. They are back with their ninth album. And it's as strangely resigned to its place in the world as its hugely successful creators have always been.
In some ways, it's grand that they haven't changed. The chord progressions, disco beats, laconic vocals and inflated production values are instantly recognisable. But there's a nagging sense - as with so much about Britain in 2006 - that we expected more, that we thought things were going to get better.
Fundamental opens with Psychological, a catchy but rather tired slice of '80s nostalgia. There are lyrics about asymmetric haircuts, eye make-up and a quote from the Police's Every Breath You Take. The first single, I'm With Stupid (a satire on the Blair/Bush relationship), is a less ambitious take on their: "I've got the brains, you've got the looks", without the "let's make lots of money". Elsewhere, there's a heartbreaking ballad in which the singer walks into a room to find his lover gazing into another's eyes: "I made my excuses and left." There's a cringeworthy line about an elephant in the room. And, as if in reaction to the listener's wince, a beautiful line about embarrassment overcoming passion.
Fundamental is full of such greatness and deflation. Consistently fusing the personal and the political, the Pet Shop Boys still provide a compelling and melancholy soundtrack to our lives in 2006. Helen Brown
Prick up your ears.
