Being Electric

Transcendent, resplendent, and (yes) fluorescent. A return to form and a leap forward. I’d write more but I’m too busy dancing.”

That was the 21-word review I posted on Twitter last July 12, upon listening to “Electric,” the new album by the Pet Shop Boys, which was then streaming in its entirety. When it was officially released soon after, it entered the official U.K. album chart at #3 — the highest U.K. chart placement for a Pet Shop Boys studio album since “Very” hit #1 back in the ‘90s.

Yes, the electronic pop duo has been around for a very long time. Though always aware of prevailing trends in pop music in general and dance music in particular, they have somehow managed to avoid pop pitfalls such as calcifying or seeming a little too trendy, and have instead served as inspirations and influences for fresh generations of newer artists (witness Brandon Flowers and Lady Gaga sharing the stage with them during the 2009 Brit Awards, among too many other examples to recount).

What has kept them a vital, viable act over the years? A number of things, the twin towers of which are their intelligence, and their way with a tune. Their intelligence encompasses not just their lyrics, rich in allusions and in-jokes and thematic concerns that range from the lighthearted to the heavy, but everything down to the way they present themselves through graphic design (hello, Mark Farrow) and fashion (I first heard of Issey Miyake because of Chris Lowe’s taste in jackets) — as well as projects such as films, a musical, an original ballet, and scoring Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film classic The Battleship Potemkin.

And as for the tunes — well, it’s best to experience them for yourself, of course. Here’s a quick PSB for Beginners: listen to West End Girls (their first big hit, which encapsulates many of their virtues as well as a foible or two); What Have I Done To Deserve This? (featuring none other than the late, great Dusty Springfield); Left To My Own Devices (which contains the immortal line “Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat”); Being Boring (inspired by a Zelda Fitzgerald quote and the AIDS-related death of a friend, it is sad and beautiful and wonderful); and Liberation (one of the loveliest love songs ever set to a beat).

There’s more — in a career spanning decades, the Boys have made nothing but good and often great albums, which is a remarkable achievement, to say the least. Their latest is no exception: Inside a Dream is a stirring, shimmering, synth-laden thing; the catchy-as-hell Thursday was described by Popjustice as being both classic Pet Shop Boys and belonging to 2013; Vocal is incredible, a relentless and joyous dance anthem. “This is my kind of music,” Neil Tennant sings. And so it is. 

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The Pet Shop Boys will be performing live in Manila for the first time at the Smart Araneta Coliseum on Aug. 6, 2013.