Never in second class

Now back in 1986, in the then regular section of a pop culture magazine Smash Hits, the electro/synth-pop duo Erasure evaluated the fresh singles of their "colleagues" at that time, and on that occasion they were the single of that half of the month, in competition with the bands Deacon Blue, AC/DC, Bananarama, Everything But The Girl, Fleetwood Mac, Ah-ha... singled out what will soon become an everlasting evergreen, a song Heart Pet Shop Boys, also a duo from the same genre direction. Admittedly, through the teeth and with quite a bit of reserve; Vince Clarke, the alpha and omega of Erasure, but also the founder of the sound of Depeche Mode and later Yazoo, said that Heart is the best and healthiest part of the offer for that issue of the aforementioned magazine, but that it seems to him like a second-class work in the oeuvre of PSB, who, in his impression, do not really take much care of what they throw out in front of fans, while Andy Bell (singer of Erasure) went one step further, and in his assessment he pointed out that he really liked PSB's first album, but that it was clear that they rushed to release the second long-playing work, which soon seen, because the second album (Actually) was creepy, just like, in his opinion, the song was Heart.

From this distance and with this intelligence and awareness of the confirmed great moments and achievements of popular music and pop culture in a wider sense, it seems that the above assessments are too harsh and missed, and may even be outrageous. With just a little bit of loading and a pinch of conspiracy theory, one could assume that the cause of such hatred towards PSB is the fact that Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys) only a few years earlier had signed for the same Smash Hits dealt with reviews of current music releases, among which there could be those signed (by the otherwise quite brilliant, and persistently brilliant Vince Clarke). That is less important now, because in these few decades of the new millennium, both "bands" certainly delivered valid and interesting albums to their fans, the importance of which, as happened with the song/single, will Heart, be sure to confirm the time as well. And when we are already dealing with the passage of time, and then necessarily its connection with today's days, let it be clear now that Nonetheless primarily builds on PSB's three albums, with the fact that, due to the striking return of strings, the long-playing work can also be cited as a reference and analogy Release from the same year in 2002. For all that, as the Pet Shop Boys taught us for years and decades, there is considerable joy in detecting and then analyzing the twin reflections in their discography. Even when we dig a little deeper and start looking for links and references between individual songs and not only albums, because PSB albums from the first to the last represent examples of well-rounded and fully articulated conceptuality based on the example and foundation of music that certainly tends to be recognized and recognized and as a popular, well-listened to, hit... Self-irony, and fans have certainly been fully aware of this for a long time, is one of the supporting pillars of PSB's approach to music, and one of of the apparent forms of that beneficial and purposeful self-irony is also the willingness of Lowe and Tennant to point out the derivativeness of popular music/culture, including that which they themselves create and offer for inspection, with the fact that only then, with this awareness, should one approach the weighing of individual ranges, that is, evaluate what was specifically achieved there, from song to song, and then from album to album, and so on for each individual author and/or performer in this up-to-the-minute catalog of challenges for fans of this or that, like this or that, less or more popular and "hit" music.

On this album (the first after a sort of trilogy on which PSB collaborated with the infallible producer Stuart Price, who is here replaced by James Ford), everything just said looks (actually sounds) like this: the album opens with the track Loneliness, a powerful homage to the standard disco sound with a touch of existentialist questioning over the auto-sabotage we all know so well, a song which, in addition to the obvious virality and hitoidity, evokes a rather strong association with the earlier pearl, the track Before there from the late nineties. Feel was reportedly tailored for the solo album of Brendan Flowers (The Killers), but even so, as an extremely suggestive elegy about longing for a loved one, it forms an integral part of the dense emotional fabric of the album Nonetheless as long-playing units. On the other hand, Why Am I Dancing?, another PSB questioner on the topic of the ethics of dancing in the whirlwind of a world that is clearly falling apart (in this sense, following in the footsteps of earlier tracks Was It Worth It??, The End Of The World, DJ Culture...), leaves the impression of well-thought-out elaboration and completion of the track Yesterday When I Was Mad, one of the most annoying moments not only on their album Very but also in their entire oeuvre. Things are noticeably better already in the next - New London Boy, where we find a subtle and broad orchestration with the variation theme of earlier minor synth-pop songs and a somewhat unexpected influence of rap (or more precisely spoken word) share, which then introduces into the associative game West End Girls i Paninaro as the most famous PSB works on that subtopic, from the first to more recent works. Otherwise very hit and catchy Dancing Star (dedicated to the rise and inexorable fall of Rudolf Nureyev), still gives off a bit of proverbiality and mannerism, and in that sense, as sufficiently distinctive elements, it comes in handy with contemporary decorations - the sounds of scratching from fifty years ago (on that track, everyone should study the remix that PSB did for the iconic-hymnical Last Night The DJ Saved My Life).

The central part is occupied by perhaps the best and most well-rounded song on the entire album - A New Bohemia, with which the Pet Shop Boys return to the long-conquered terrain of striking and grandiose pop symphonies; with the tenderness of the strings, the always healing spleen and the awareness of a pop song that, in principle, can transcend to something higher and more sweeping - a true work of art, this song, from a "similar folder" as the famous Dreaming Of The Queen from the last century, once again shows the strength of sincerity and the willingness to admit defeat. After the truly poignant opening lines (“Like silent movie stars in '60s Hollywood, no one knows who you are in the hipster neighborhood..."), here we again reach the reformatory and emancipatory in the action of Lowe and Tennant; Namely, in the chorus of this pop song there is room for a prominent mention Les Petits Bon-Good, of the alternative, conceptual-activist-queer movement from Wisconsin from half a century ago, which then puts the question of the often obscured understanding of popular culture as a flexible and important conduit and medium for the "placement" of educational intentions, and that is the field in which to whom PSB points from the very beginning of its operation. Unfortunately, it is followed by the most questionable moment of the entire album - The Last Schlager Parade, an unnecessarily sugary and flabby kitsch song with a visibly limited shelf life, quite similar to several more or less unique and successful PSB Christmas songs. Fortunately, she is waiting for us after her The Secret of Happiness, a masterful tribute to the subtleties and finesse we remember from the works of the great Bert Bacarak, and not only from that point of view, but with the sound of the harp, which brings back the tactility and refinement of the track Jealous from the album Behavior. It would naturally be followed by an extremely lethargic one Love is the Law, sung (as expected, in half voice), but extremely dramatic with an echo of what the more versed remember from the also boldly stripped Numb. Between those two great works, Udenuta is visibly more energetic and undeniably charming Bullet For Narcissus, which brings PSB back to well-known and beloved waters - to the sphere of dance music with the obligatory use of the brain (dance with brains), with a wise and really funny joke on the topic of solipsism and superficiality as the fate of our era and this world ("The Narcissus, his power is his dream, his politics are simply mean, he doesn't believe what he hasn't seen, he's so banal, he's made it mainstream"); in terms of musical "packaging", this track refers to a recent one Say it to me, but, one would say, in the first place to the sound that Tennant created while working on the "Electronic" project (with Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner).

Those problematic stars will not follow here, but, to avoid ambiguity, let it be said that it is Nonetheless, let's also mention that, the fifteenth album for Pet Shop Boys, a very good and completely mature and self-conscious work, and as such it has every right to carry the epithet of a release with a clear and convincing reason for its existence, and it can also be said that it is a dignified work of the deserving ( for meritorious ones), while that assessment was not carried out with a discount seen and ready for veterans at all times worthy of respect and understanding, because at PSB we simply have not seen "goods" of a truly different class until now, right?