Tim: You want to know the best thing of all about Pet Shop Boys?
Tom: The unexpected guitar riff that pervades their Live 8 performance of “Go West”, which completely redefines the song without overwriting the original.
Tim: That is very good, but nope. I’ll tell you in a bit.
Tim: Right: basically, they have never stopped being brilliant. Not once.
Tom: Wait, hang on. They must have. They’ve got a hell of a lot of hits, sure, but they’ve got a few misses too.
Tim: I’m not so sure – three and a half decades, they’ve been going, and every single album they’ve released has made the top ten and their latest here is up there with the best. Off the top of my head, the only comparable band I can think of would be U2, and their lead singer is widely regarded as a bellend, so I think it’s obvious who wins there.
But anyway, this track, and of course it’s obvious that I, and basically every pop fan, is going to love it purely because they can identify with it.
Tom: Then I must be the exception.
Tim: Oh come now, don’t be silly. I myself certainly remember telling (and indeed still do tell) pretty much anyone who will listen that rock music’s overrated, and only this morning I quoted Shania Twain at someone. Even if I were coming at it from another angle, though, it’d still be brilliant – the lyrics tell a wonderful heart-warming love story about people and music, and the music behind it sounds great fits that perfectly.
Tom: Which is all well and good if that works for you: but without that, I’m not sure this is actually all that good a track? The early-90s synth patch is a decent choice, sure, but the melody’s sort of okay; the lyrics are terrible — he’s literally rhyming “pop kids” with “pop kids”; and it ain’t all that catchy. And let’s face it, that talking part’s pretty cringeworthy.
Tim: Thing with the lyrics is that they’re there to tell a story, and what you think of the lyrics will most likely be largely influenced by that story. I love it, and so love the lyrics. Melody and instrumental – hmm, well, maybe I wouldn’t choose to listen to an instrumental, sure, but it all works together for me. (And technically he’s rhyming “kids” with “hit” and “bits”, though I’m not sure that’s much better.)
Tom: This is, oddly, roughly what we thought of the last big Pet Shop Boys single: maybe it’s just that I have a higher bar, or — shockingly — different taste. But I’ll listen to Inner Sanctum over this, every time.
Tim: Well at least we’re agreed that Super will have at least one great track on there, and probably many more. And for me at least, their brilliance seems immortal – let’s truly hope it is.