Pet Shop Boys
Very

THE REVIEW

Sometimes it can happen that an album is conceived and takes shape in reaction to the one before it. If you're looking for a rather obvious example, you can compare "Behaviour" (1990) and "Very" (1993) by the Pet Shop Boys. Because if you try with "let's make a masterpiece album" and it doesn't work, you can always try again with "let's make a mega electronic dance album" and then tell me.

Attention: it's not that "Behaviour" didn't work on an organoleptic level. But when you're, all in all, still in the starting phase ("Very" is the fifth studio album), you also have to count the pennies (=sales). Then, over time, you can do whatever you want, when the foundations are solid and the bank account is well-stocked and secure.

The person writing to you is a die-hard fan of the Pet Shop Boys (really?) but that's not the point. There are albums that float: today you like them, tomorrow less, in ten years you forget you had them. Then, maybe, you revisit them. "Very" is an evergreen. And, if the meditative and melancholic "Behaviour" pushes you to introspection, the message of "Very" is: get up, go, fight to survive. Night and day, sobriety and exuberance.

"We wanted twelve potential singles", Neil declared in 2001. It seemed like a fantasy, but the Pets came close. "Very" is a punch in the stomach. It has generated stadium anthems, made both old and new fans dance, and invigorated the gay audience (not coincidentally, Neil came out during this period in the magazine "Attitude").

Let's go in order. On production, Neil and Chris: after working diligently for other artists (Neil: "Producing someone else's album is easier than producing your own". Thank you, Uncle Neil) the Pets felt ready for the big leap. On programming, the trusty Pete Gleadall, unanimously considered by fans as the third Pet Shop Boy. There were two rules. The first: all instruments must be reproduced by the emulator, especially the guitars. The second, which was more of a characteristic than a rule, was that the two verses in each song had to be different.

The album opens with the first single, "Can You Forgive Her?", a leading track in its DNA. Musically loaded, Chris Lowe in full "orchestra hit" trip, it talks about a gay boy who doesn't have the courage to leave his girlfriend, who mocks him for how he dances and the music he listens to. "Is it autobiographical?" they asked Neil. "No, I've never had sex in a bicycle shed" ("Remember when you were more easily led,
behind the cricket pavilion and the bicycle shed"). "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing", third single, curiously edited in reverse: the sober album version was extended on the occasion of its release as a CD single. Here it talks about a serious gentleman who suddenly discovers love and lets himself go. "Normally I wouldn't do this kind of thing." Yeah right. Then you dream and slow down with "Liberation" (even if your foot doesn't stop tapping), another heretic who discovers love after laughing at lovers in his presumably previous gloomy existence. Musically a jewel, one of the album's high points.

"A Different Point of View" is a pleasant escape and, according to some, the low point of the album. Chris: "Never liked it. I put that orchestra hit in the chorus just to annoy Neil". I don't completely agree. Above all, listen to this refine: "Just this once...just say yes...please...". Try it to believe it. Then, there's a rather sad interlude, a slow one, "Dreaming Of The Queen", the story of a dream, made by Neil, where he and Lady D count the victims of AIDS: "There are no more lovers left alive....". Not coincidentally, the intro, suggests Chris, has a rather regal tone.

We return to dancing with "Yesterday, When I Was Mad" (fifth single) only to compose ourselves immediately with the best track on the album, "The Theatre", a refined representation of the homeless outside theaters. It could have, should have been a single. Chris: "I imagine the video, especially the scene where I walk past the homeless giving them money, accompanied by Neil who instead ignores them...". Luciano Pavarotti is mentioned and perhaps, this track, inserted in "Behaviour" instead of the useless "So Hard", would have made that album truly immortal. At least in my eyes. Musically, in its structure and approach, a gem.

"One And One Make Five" is a classic in PSB fashion, delicate and pumped just right (compromise is the duo's definitive imprint) and the guys wanted it as the first single. It doesn't have the potential and Parlophone had a keen eye in the matter. The late Dainton, their personal assistant until cancer claimed him in 2004, enters the refine with a "Here we go, here we go, here we go....".

"To Speak Is A Sin" is a slow track with ancient origins, pre-dating “It’s A Sin”, and talks about the embarrassment and wall of silence that often comes between patrons of London gay clubs. Musically, we're always on high levels. The track is also appreciated in its live version, proposed in "Discovery". "Young Offender" is the most refined moment of the entire album. The computerized sounds that, by the duo's will, reproduce echoes and effects present in the video games of the time throughout the album, are denser here. The chord progression devised by Lowe is engaging, of high level, the lyrics avoid the usual themes by telling the story of an online chess game between a mature man and, presumably, a boy.

It closes with an overdose of lightness. "One In A Million" has a long story. In 1986, an Italian language demo was made, but the idea sank (thank goodness, I add). The final version, this one, was about to be offered to Take That because it was deemed too poppy, too light. But then....boom! It's cute alright, but not predominant in the album's economy.

Of "Go West" (second single) I can only say I usually skip to the instrumental outro, which is the best part of the track. I've said it all. Cover of the Village People which, as far as I'm concerned, could have avoided seeing the light. It was Chris who insisted when in 1992 the group was invited to perform at the Hacienda for a concert, proposing an alternative version of "Violence" and, indeed, the cover of "Go West". Chris labored to convince Neil, who wanted none of it. So much so that the first version, a 1992 demo, was thought of as a potential b-side. The track, but you already know this, was a hit. A true anthem for the gay community, rubbing shoulders with “It’s A Sin” for the role of the duo's trademark.

The "Very" sessions also gave rise to a handful of instrumental tracks, included in the limited edition named "Very Relentless" and an interesting batch of b-sides: "Forever In Love", "Confidential" made for Tina Turner, who released it in 1996. It's a pleasant slow track, but it turned out later that poor Tina expected something along the lines of "It's A Sin". And also, "Hey Headmaster", "Shameless", "Too Many People", "Falling" (made for Kylie Minogue, musically originating from a failed remix of "Go West"), "If Love Were All", "Decadence", "Euroboy", "Some Speculation". The single (which went straight to number one in 1994) "Absolutely Fabulous", made for the show of the same name, also revolves around "Very".

"Very" is the younger, lighthearted brother of "Behaviour". Look at the covers: red roses on a white background and an orange Lego-like composition. The two, as happens between siblings, love each other, they esteem and appreciate each other. But while the elder prefers to stay on the couch with a cup of tea and a pair of intimate, trusted friends, the second prefers to run through the streets eager to come out, to blossom for what it is: a wonderful, very pleasant, innocent escape.