So I’ve been reading and hearing about Pet Shop Boys’ latest concert tour and from what I can ascertain, it is amazing as always. I have never seen Pet Shops Boys in concert before and perhaps if they ever tour again I’ll take the opportunity to see what they’re all about.
The reason that I haven’t gone out and seen them on tour is because, well, I’m not really that big of a fan of Pet Shop Boys. I like some of their songs, but I guess my favorite Pet Shop Boys-esque songs would have to be when Neil Tennant sang with the group Electronic. “Disappointed” is one of my favorite dance tracks from the 90s.
I’m also a fan of Electronic’s “Getting Away With It”. Neil sings backups on that one.
I think one of the reasons I wasn’t a Pet Shop Boys fan back in the day was because I didn’t “get” them. Musically I have always found them to be quite good but they never really looked particularly happy on their album covers. This was always disconcerting to me. If you’re going to sing somewhat happy sounding pop music, you should look mildly happy or at least somewhat engaged on your album cover. At least, that was the logic I was processing in my at the time 16-year-old mind.
Like I said, I didn’t “get” them.
As I DJ I didn’t really spin their music that much. They were never really in my “OMG I have to play this record!” category when I had the ability to pack the dance floor by playing the proper music on Technics SL-1200 turntables, but I would play one of their tracks once in a while. Anyone that worked at Wow-FM back when I was program director can probably attest that there wasn’t a lot of Pet Shop Boys in rotation on the dance-oriented station. I guess that wasn’t a fair decision for me to make but we didn’t get a lot of requests to support otherwise, I guess.
There is one track of there’s that I have always enjoyed. It came out in 1987 and peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 40. Now this track I like, musically, lyrically and throughout its video presentation.
Here’s “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” by Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield.
