Where had the Pet Shop Boys been all my life? Honestly, everywhere. I remember being 9 years old, listening to “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” on my Sony Dream Machine clock radio while leafing through X-Men comics. At 20, my bandmate thought the cover of the new Pet Shop Boys album, “Nightlife,” looked cool enough to suggest that we pose for our own record sleeve on the D.C. Metro. In my mid-20s, I loved a girl who loved “West End Girls.” Across my 30s, I danced to the music of the Pet Shop Boys at nightclubs, at weddings, at karaoke, at birthday parties, at karaoke birthday parties — the kinds of places where everyone is happy. All of this, and I never got fully onboard. Never bought a record. Never called myself a fan. I was totally fine with allowing the Pet Shop Boys to appear in my life this way, like perfect weather or a tax refund.
Last year, fate started pushing a little harder. At an impromptu social gathering in the springtime, apropos of nothing, my friend Kevin pressed a book into my hands. It was “Pet Shop Boys, Literally,” a 358-page recounting of the duo’s 1989 world tour. “You need to read this.” I set it on the bookshelf, where it remained untouched until December, when my wife took me to the movies to see “All of Us Strangers,” a British metaphysical romance starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal. In one scene, a reunited family listens to the Pet Shop Boys perform “Always on My Mind” on television while decorating their Christmas tree — and for me, that’s where things got especially metaphysical. The music made me feel like I was reliving a childhood memory that wasn’t mine. I sat with that sensation for roughly three more months, until finally, on a rainy March morning that felt properly drab and Thatchery, I cued up the Pet Shop Boys’ 1986 debut album, “Please,” and stepped into a new world otherwise known as the rest of my life.
I’m telling two stories here. The first one is about how it might take more than three decades to get into your new favorite band; about how none of our tastes are permanent; about how music is always kicking around out there, waiting for us to get involved. The second story is about the Pet Shop Boys, who are precisely the kind of group that allows all of those things to happen.
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Here’s what I know so far. The Pet Shop Boys aren’t a conceptual pop group so much as a principled one. Not an idea. A practice. Formed under the cloudy skies of Margaret Thatcher’s England, they made highly erudite synth-pop imbued with the loneliness of the AIDS crisis and the yearning for a future that wasn’t promised. From go, singer Neil Tennant understood pop lyricism as a science, but he deployed it like an art, assigning brilliant words to beautiful melodies that often longed to be belted, but that he instead chose to sing with delicate discipline and care, as if to remind the world of music’s value. Tennant’s creative partner, Chris Lowe, is a craftsman who has always kept sheen within the bounds of good taste, and together, the duo’s ongoing awareness to contemporary pop trends remains evidenced by their refusal to chase them.
End of carouselEqual parts Kraftwerk and show tunes, their music has always felt unique and reliable. There are no bad Pet Shop Boys albums, many great ones, and a few that will change your life, (sad things will feel sweeter, but sweet things will also feel a little sadder), and whenever it begins to feel as if they’re singing only to you, it’s important to remember that the band’s self-described “imperial phase” of the late ’80s explains why they rule eternally at karaoke and wedding receptions. Yes, the Pet Shop Boys were once famous enough to roll through the airport accompanied by bodyguards whose blazer pockets were stuffed with pre-autographed photos, but all phases must end. “Like silent movie stars in ’60s Hollywood,” Tennant sings on the group’s new album, “nobody knows who you are in the hipster neighborhood.”
Aptly, artfully, hilariously, they’ve named that new album “Nonetheless,” continuing an unbroken tradition of one-word album titles that often serve as meta-commentary on the state of the group. “Nonetheless” is an irrefutable pop album, mindful of its details, aware of its handsomeness, with Tennant musing on obsolescence, coming of age, isolation, communion, devotion, loss and the sublime pleasures of pop itself — pop songs about pop songs from two minds who have earned their place on that Möbius loop.
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Is it wrong to listen for novelty from a group this consistent? “Nonetheless” might skew a smidge more songwriterly than dance floor, but Tennant and Lowe have been exploding the mutual exclusivity of those two modes for their whole trip. They do it right out of the gate here, opening the album with “Loneliness,” an existential disco plunge that’s quick to remind us how “nobody can live without love.” Those words are aimed straight at your hurting heart, but also at the entire world — proof that Pet Shop Boys music remains a standing invitation. If, like me, you’ve waited decades to RSVP, maybe this is your way in. Or hey, maybe next time. “Why am I dancing when I’m so alone?” Tennant asks from the highest heights of this album, confirming that his sadness-sweetness shell game has no expiration date. His voice sounds as lonely as ever, but he’s left the door wide open.
correction
An earlier version of this article listed the incorrect year for the release of the Pet Shop Boys' debut album, "Please." It came out in 1986. The article has been corrected.
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