Album review: Pet Shop Boys’ Electric

[truebluefan]

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys in London for the 2012 Summer Games. The Pet Shop Boys’s 12th album, Electric, was released independently after 28 years with their previous label, Parlophone.

I met Neil Tennant at a Rufus Wainwright after-party, in London in 2003. We were milling about in the basement of a townhouse owned by Harper Simon, son of Paul. Beth Orton lingered nearby.

Tennant, the consummate gentleman, introduced himself by his full name, which sounded familiar but which I didn’t immediately recognize. When I finally asked him where I knew it from, he replied, unflappable:

“Oh, I play in a band called the Pet Shop Boys.”

Aside from being one of the more embarrassing moments of my music journalism career, it was a great example of Tennant’s ability to deal with the post-ubiquity of his great ’80s synth-pop duo, completed by partner Chris Lowe, with composure and class.

Pet Shop Boys may no longer rule the charts like they did back in the day, but they have never stopped working, recording albums every few years since their debut, Please, in 1986, featuring the cool dance floor hit West End Girls.

They continue to tour, balancing old favourites with new material which, while pleasant, hasn’t been groundbreaking in a while.

So it’s a genuine surprise to hear the Pet Shop Boys’s 12th album, Electric — released independently after 28 years with their previous label, Parlophone. Brimming with punchy, up-to-date beats, courtesy of club-pop mastermind Stuart Price (the man behind Madonna’s 2005 disco romp Confessions On a Dance Floor).

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