The Pet Shop Boys began the second decade of their lengthy career with a downtempo album, Behaviour, quickly followed by a then career-spanning retrospective, Discography. By the end of the decade they had produced another fine body of work scaling the fast-changing face of dance music from house to deep techno, while remaining intact and true to their sound.
The Pet Shop Boys in the 1990’s
- Behaviour
In 1990, The Pet Shop Boys released this bittersweet album that took a break from the heavy hitting club tracks of Introspective in favour of lower-key, orchestral lounge tracks - lead single, the propulsive and sardonic “So Hard” being the exception. Ironically, as with everything dealing with PSB, Behaviour was their most introspective album to date.
“Being Boring” the album’s second single featured an arty black and white video filled with homoerotic images that cemented their image as gay icons. While the rest of the album followed a similar mellow groove, it failed to catch on in the US. In the UK however, both singles hit top 20.
- Discography
Cleverly titled, this greatest hits package gathered the greatest neo disco of the 1980’s while including new material from the 1990’s. Grouping all the hottest 80’s tracks in their favoured single versions, this greatest hits also included their remarkable splice of “Where the Streets Have No Name/ Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”.
Just as they did with the old Willie Nelson track, PSB took a number one single from U2 and turned it into a dancefloor and chart smash. The last tracks of the album, “DJ Culture” and “Was It Worth It” embraced the emerging House scene.
- Very
By album number five, The Pet Shop Boys, released the best album of their already incredible career. UK top ten smashes “Can You Forgive Her”, “Liberation”, “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Type of Thing” and “Yesterday, When I was Mad”, experimented with increasingly gay themes (especially on “Go West”, a Village People classic), backbreaking beats, male choirs and hard core techno. Brilliantly conceptualised and packaged, Very breathed new life into the PSB sound while keeping their image intact.
Also released during this period, “Absolutely Fabulous” a dance track built around sound bites to the BBC television series proved that the PSB had as much fun poking fun at themselves as they did crafting the best electronic music of 1993.
- Disco 2
Grouping tracks from their previous albums Very and Behaviour as well as “Absolutely Fabulous”, and remixing them over and over and over didn’t make for the best concept as an album. Lacking any true point, other than collecting 12’ inch remixes for a second installation of their Disco series, Disco 2 suffered from many ailments and is thus reserved for serious fans only.
- Alternative
This two-disc collection grouped their more experimental and hard hitting tracks of the previous 15 years. A re-recorded version of a track featured on Disco, “Paninaro –‘95” became another top 20 single for the band, extending their chart prowess even further.
Collecting B-Sides and tracks penned for others such as “Losing My Mind” by Liza Minnelli off her PSB-produced Results album, Alternative proves that the PSB feel equally as comfortable creating pop tunes (“In the Night”, “I Want a Dog”) and tracks for trance-induced raves (“The Sound of the Atom Splitting”, "Euroboy”) as they do crafting thought-provoking art (What Keeps Mankind Alive”, “If Love Were All”).
- Bilingual
The Pet Shop Boys took a trip to Spain and came back with another killer album. Heavy on the drums and Latin influence, PSB took all that was good with “Domino Dancing”, merged it with their Very sound, fleshed it out and made the world wish it could be “Saturday Night Forever”.
Remaining ironic and at times campy, stand out tracks include the military choir-backed “Red Letter Days”, the happy-go-lucky “Se A Vida E (That’s the Way Life is)”, the looking for love in all the wrong bath houses “Single” and the gay-struggle battle anthem “Up Against It”. Bilingual also produced two tracks to top the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart: “To Step Aside” and “Before”.
- Nightlife
On Nightlife, The Pet Shop Boys tried to bring their big gay party to New York City. Two singles hit big on the US Hot Dance Music/Club Play, the number one “New York City Boy “ and the number 2 “I Don t Know What You Want But I Can t Give It Any More”, but the album contains much filler and repetition.
Nightlife does, however, include a couple of biting love songs for the rave scene with “You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk”, and “Happiness is an Option”. The album also features the stand out “Closer to Heaven”.
The Pet Shop Boys closed a chapter on their career in 1999 and took time to produce other projects before returning with more brilliant studio albums in the 2000’s.
James W. Coates - A nomad at heart, James W. Coates has been combining his passion for music, writing and traveling ever since his father packed the family ...
