And someone said, “It’s fabulous you’re still around today / you’ve both made such a little go a very long way” — “Yesterday, When I Was Mad”, Pet Shop Boys, Very
With Hotspot hitting stores earlier this year, the Pet Shop Boys have now released fourteen entire full studio records, on top of the never-mind-how-many compilations, EPs, remix albums, singles and so on that comprise their full discography. (Discography is in fact the name of one of their compilation releases. Because of course it is.) This record is billed as completing a trilogy of albums, with 2013’s Electric and 2016’s Super preceding it. So, how does this one fare?
PSB songs tend to fall into one or more standard categories: Dance tracks, sappy downtempo pieces, biting satire, and weird experiments. All of the biting satire was siphoned off for last year’s delightful Agenda EP which is worth the price of admission for “On social media” alone, with an honorary mention for “What are we going to do about the rich?”. What remains for this album are several solid dance numbers, one weird experimental bit (“Wedding In Berlin”) at the tail end, and a mixed bag of downtempo pieces. The boys are in solid form here, make no mistake. It’s just that their sappier numbers tend not to work for me, so what I’m really getting out of this are the dance songs.
Which isn’t a bad thing, because the three best ones here are “Will-o-the-wisp” right at the start, “Dreamland” (with guest vocals) a few tracks on, and “Monkey business” just past the halfway mark. I can’t decide which of the three I like best, and believe me I’ve listened to them frequently enough this past week-or-so that I should’ve been able to by now. They’re all really, really good, let’s just leave it at that.
Is Hotspot worth your money? That depends on if you like other Pet Shop Boys music and want more of it. There’s no mistaking this for anything but a PSB record, with just enough new twists and variations to assure the listener that Tennant and Lowe haven’t entirely submitted to the ravages of time. As a fan since almost the beginning, I give it a solid stamp of approval.
