Pet Shop Boys
Nonetheless
X2/Parlophone
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With watchful eyes, well-read reference points, and an uncanny ability to fuse sophisticated storytelling with euphoric arrangements, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have crafted beautifully evocative and emotionally layered pop songs as Pet Shop Boys for over 40 years.
Whether it’s a yearning to connect (“Monkey business”), a quest for elusive happiness (“Tonight is forever”), the perils of revelation (“So hard”), or the strange bedfellows of politics (“I’m with stupid”), Tennant and Lowe have documented numerous angles of our human condition over the decades and scored their astute observations with elegance (“Being boring”) and ebullience (“Did you see me coming?”) across a diverse discography of studio albums, singles, soundtracks, EPs, B-sides and remixes.
Their new album Nonetheless continues Tennant and Lowe’s reign as the kings of marrying incandescent pop with luxuriant lyricism. After closing a trio of primarily electronically crafted pop albums produced by Stuart Price with 2020’s autumnal Hotspot, they enlisted producer James Ford (Jessie Ware, Simian Mobile Disco, Arctic Monkeys, The Last Shadow Puppets) to warm things up a bit with a balance of organic instruments, old drum machines and analog synths, and a real-life orchestra.
The result is a wise, wistful and sometimes witty collection of songs that often keeps its eyes on the past and its feet on the dance floor. Album opener “Loneliness” picks up the story from Hotspot’s “I don’t wanna” with a cinematic prelude that tees up hi-energy humid beats, trumpeting fanfare (reminiscent of their 1985 smash “West End Girls”) and electric synths to buoy a paternal pep talk about the pitfalls of isolation. With hands-in-the-air anthemic swells, “Why am I dancing?” ponders if dancing by yourself might be a form of self-care in life’s most curious moments (“How did I get here? / Who did I ever harm?”) Either of these songs would fit nicely alongside “One and one make five” from their 1993 album Very.
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So many of the songs on Nonetheless feel like short stories or filmic presentations of ordinary and extraordinary characters aching, celebrating or starting anew. The Rudolf Nureyev-inspired “Dancing star” brightens up a dusty historical tale of the late ballet dancer/choreographer’s 1961 defection from the USSR with sparkly synths and an early ‘80s hip-hop flair. And “New London boy”—a newly added chapter between 1990’s “Being boring” and 2012’s “Your early stuff”—paints Tennant’s watercolor memories of moving to London in the 1970s with softly stacked vocal flourishes, satiny saxophone and an unbothered mid-tempo beat that switches itself up for a dreamy Tennant rap moment.
Nonetheless also possesses an unhurriedness we haven’t heard from the Boys since 2012’s Elysium. But Ford smartly avoids that album’s occasional maudlinism by boosting Tennant and Lowe’s compositions with soft edges, rounded throbs and thumps, and ample space for lyrics to settle and organic instruments to provide crucial subtext—a mainstay in most Pet Shop Boys songs.
The waltzing, celebratory strings of “A new bohemia” calm the song’s lyrical worry about being out of touch as you age. Floaty orchestral billows in “The secret of happiness” partner with the lubricating sensuality of samba to signify the duality of love. And the gliding, waltz-like instrumentals in “Feel” uplift a story about delayed gratification with a luxurious sheen in the song’s Carpenters-like chorus (“I would never let you down / I will wait.”)
For years, lush romanticism has been one of Tennant and Lowe’s calling cards and these three songs catapult themselves up there with some of the duo’s most opulent work like “Dreaming of the queen,” “It couldn’t happen here,” “In denial” or “Requiem in denim and leopardskin.” Years from now we will refer to this collection as “The Pet Shop Boys Orchestral Album.”
Nonetheless advances the pair’s long anthology of delivering insightful narratives with blissful melodies, stately symphonious ornamentation, and elevated cultural commentary. Although, on the album’s back half, beer garden anthem “The schlager hit parade” and the politically hued “Bullet for Narcissus” with its cowabunga guitar and Trump references will test the patience of casual Pet Shop Boys fans.
But if a pop song doesn’t render a layered response, what’s the point?
Notable Tracks: “Dancing star” | “Feel” | “Loneliness” | “New London boy” | “The secret of happiness”
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