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Cultural gravity makes certain events inevitable, such as Sean Lennon and James McCartney writing songs together. Or Britain’s most successful pop duo returning to refine and update the sound of their late-80s imperial era. Nonetheless is Pet Shop Boys’s first album since 2020’s Hotspot, which concluded their Stuart Price-produced trilogy. New producer James Ford takes 1986 debut Please’s simplicity and the lush orchestration of 1990’s Behaviour and applies both to this fan-pleasing collection.
For those who wish the pair’s albums came with a reading list concealed inside a clutch of club flyers, there’s Dancing Star, a lovely three-minute biopic of Rudolf Nureyev – the Russian joining the vast dinner party of historical figures, including Casanova, Debussy, Hitler and the Queen, featured elsewhere in Neil Tennant’s lyrics.
Tennant specialises in the sort of pithy storytelling that’d make him an excellent people’s laureate, and New London Boy, about his glam rock adolescence, is gloriously affecting. Even better, musically, is Loneliness’s handbag-abandoning disco thump. The Schlager Hit Parade is a miss, lacking the pensive uncertainty the duo excel at, but it’s a rare flop. Essentially, there are three types of Pet Shop Boys albums: life-changing, great and OK. This one’s great.
