Pet Shop Boys // Electric (x2)

In 1993, I asked my Dad to help me make up the pocket money to buy my Mum ‘Very’ on cassette. Already the Pet Shop Boys’ 5th album, it was the one most famous for ‘Go West’ and the group seemed to inhabit this kinda subverted sleaziness, quintessential British desire to have it large and decades of great British songwriting to refer to. It was a world I wanted to belong to, but via the safe distance from behind my mum. They seemed to lose their edge with ‘Go West’, a cover of the Village People song, until this offering, some six albums later. Aside from the celebrated success of single, ‘Love Etc’ from 2009’s ‘Yes’, they’ve failed to set the world alight, or even get their fingers burnt trying. ‘Electric’ is committed without apology. Neil Tennant’s signature vocal is used sparingly, and their continued songwriting relationship with the city of dance-mad Berlin. Stuart Price, producer for the album has obviously allowed the dynamic duo to quash any ideas of the Pet Shop Boys being past it, and the beats are heavier and more in your face than much of Underworld’s most hard hitting material. It was as if Neil and Chris were sat on their sofa while watching the Olympic Ceremony , soundtracked by Underworld, and thought, ‘Let’s ‘ave it.’ A few schmaltzy, vocally indulgent tracks aside, it really is a dance lover’s kinder surprise.