I don't own the collectable vinyl edition of the 'Yes' album. I don't have a record player or three hundred quid to spare. Having all their albums, CD singles, 12" singles, remixes, rarities, VHS, DVD's, books, concert programmes, the odd item signed, a mug from the Nightlife concert (you would be treated with some suspicion if you claimed you weren't a fan of the Pet Shop Boys).
I am a fan as it happens and even if I look forward to every new PSB release, buy them, download them (legally obviously) and make my own compilations based on b-sides, remixes and album tracks, and give them my own one word titles such as 'Menagarie, 'Besides' and 'Climax', I'm not one of those obsessive fans who collect promos off ebay or give up my job to spend 6 months following them on tour, send Neil balloons, create discussion forums where I ban anyone who doesn't feed my ego or agree with me. I'm also not one of those fan's who believes the sun shine's out of their arses. I'm not wholly keen on the 'Release album, 'Closer To Heaven' musical and some of the dubious decisions made by their record company in selecting the wrong songs to issue as singles. I suppose I've become a bit of an unofficial share holder. The Pet Shop Boys have become a business that needs to be protected and cared for.
I enjoy the Pet Shop Boys for many reasons. Foremost they write beautiful, melancholy, sincere and euphoric pop music about love, loss and life. They have a distinct sound that while it borrows partially from italo/euro/techno/synth pop/SAW/modern classical, the sound is their own. As with Warp records or Kompakt they have a distinct and clean design aesthetic, an identity harvested by Eric Watson, Farrow, Weber, Sam Taylor-Wood, Scott King, Jarman or E's Devlin. Their appreciation and adoptation of modern art has lent itself to many visual treats over the years, be it smoothing your hands across the pristine, minimal artwork of 'Please' to leafing through the programme of the latest tour, even somehow, in my case, smelling the glossy pages and associating the chemical aroma with the scientific, clinicalism of the boys. I'm being a bit daft there of course. Now if they ever produce a range of teas called 'Infusion' they will really cater to the senses of smell and taste as well as touch, sight and sound.
When they collected the award at the Brits for Outstanding Contribution to Pop Music early in the year, in the way you'd expect, stylish, sincere, and not thanking every record exec and their mother, I suspect I wasn't one of the first people who initially felt they should refuse it. After all it's an awards ceremony. It's backslapping bullshit and who can accept an award accepted by Bob Geldoff or the Spice Girls? I was proved wrong. I never doubted they wouldn't put on a show to make everything that had ever gone before totally redundant. I'm still not sure what the award is actually for. They have never had anything to prove as far as I and all of their fans aware. I guess it was nice seeing them on prime time TV again. Remind the people who fell off their radar how relevant they were and ARE, what truly good pop music is about, how they make you want to dance and educate you, how they can transport you to a place in a time that maybe felt happier even if it wasn't. I don't know. In comparison most pop songs, even the secondary Xenomania pop records just sound dated, poor and not forward thinking enough (forward thinking, I'm sure is a term Tennant would hate).
When I was growing up in a council estate in the mid 80s Pet Shop Boys kept me company, their music gave me aspiration when the country was being raped by the tories. When every other student was listening to grunge and conservative 'Britpop' I defied them all with 'Very', 'Billigual' and 'Alternative'. It's all there, the backdrop of my life contained in the lyrics to 'This Used To Be The Future.' I'm a fan. Perhaps not their biggest fan but their sanest one? They still have the wrong singles released (why no Fugitive?), they got into a slight debate about the nine minute version of 'This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave' and you can still forgive them. Some critics think they should have split after Very, that Neil shouldn't have come out, that they should have remained mysterious and moody, that they shouldn't hobnob with the London media elite, they shouldn't name drop, they shouldn't have put out 'Release' but you know what? They can do whatever they like.
I once had an argument at school in 1988 with a couple of boys about who was better Pet Shop Boys or Michael Jackson. They reckoned Jackson was the greatest because he'd sold millions and millions more and was fabulously famous. In the great scheme of things I still think I'm right. I don't care about sales. Just the music. Aways the music.
Pet Shop Boys will be touring in the UK in December with their fantastic Pandemonium on Tour' Their new EP 'Christmas' is available from Amazon.co.uk and their Pet Shop Boys website petshopboys.co.uk
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