So, here’s that post about Introspective.
Sunday, July 6th, 20081.
Remember when I said “Later this week?” That was two weeks ago. My apologies. It seems like every time I’m about to get started with this blog again, something comes along to derail it in a spectacular fashion. However,since this is my not my personal whine box, let’s get to the show.
2.
“Left to my own devices,” the opener to Introspective may be my favorite Pet Shop Boys song. I say “may be” as this lofty position is constantly under bombardment. Some weeks, it’s “Hit music,” and in the fall, it’s mano-a-mano between “Being boring” and “So hard.” There’s also the one offs: a sudden obsession with a live version or remix, and for a brief two-week period in 2006, it was “E-mail,” from Release. I suspect that may have been because of a sinus infection I was suffering at the time.
“Left to my own devices” is in many ways an archetypical Pet Shop Boys song. It’s danceable: those fantastic beats and bassline that owe no small amount to Chicago house with full-on orchestration is disco at its most epic; it’s smart: find me another song that makes references to both Che Guevara and roundhead generals and it’s pure pop: only a duo in love with the form as Pet Shop Boys are could make such banal lyrics as ‘I could leave you / say good-bye / or I could love you / if I tried’ into something transcendent by the mere addition of ‘and left to my own devices / I probably would.’
The title is one of those British phrases Tennant and Lowe are so keen on, much like “Home and dry,” and the Noel Coward quote ‘We’re lying in the gutters, but we’re looking at the stars’ from “I get excited (You get excited too.)” One of the things I admire about Pet Shop Boys is the way they, like New Order, are unabashedly English. Where New Order come from working-class Manchester and frequently sound like it even with all the synthesizers and production sheen (see: “Blue Monday,” with its mordant dour lyrics and monotonous, transcendent robotic beats), Neil Tennant’s northern upbringing (as discussed in “Left to my own devices”) and Chris Lowe’s Blackpool beach-resort attitude (quite literally in “Disco potential,”) both crop up quite often in their music. It’s probably one of the things that attracts me most to their music, particularly when I was a (much) younger American: the near-exoticism that still captures something very close to home.
As Introspective is a proper disco record chocked to the gills with extended remixes that feature longer breakdowns, extra verses, and bigger beats, “Left to my own devices” is displayed in what I feel is its full glory, especially when compared to the radio-friendly single version that has much less oomph. Neil’s bridge in which he sing-speaks a recap of his day as the beats build and string swell to a triumphant finale easily stands in my top five Pet Shop Boys recorded moments.
3.
“I want a dog” was originally the b-side to “Rent,” and appears in a heavily-remixed form courtesy of Frankie Knuckles. What I like about this song is that it does what it says on the tin. It’s a slight ditty, inspired by band friend Pete Andreas stating matter of factly ‘I want a dog. A chihuahua. I’ve only got a small flat.’ Tennant has described this song as being sad, and it’s interesting how dark and near-gothic (in the traditional sense versus shock-rock and thrust crotches) it sounds on Introspective with a slinky house beat and a bassline that could rattle your fillings. I’ve always liked the pianos on this record that roll in on top at about the three minute mark, turning a sad little song about a man who wants a pet into a late night sweatbox track that would not be out of place in any of Knuckle’s DJ sets from the period. It chugs along at only 110 BPM, but there’s a deep, deep groove and near-sinister atmosphere that’s hard to deny. This is one of those tracks I’ve been known to have a little dance to while doing the washing-up.
4.
“Domino dancing” is the song that probably singlehandedly fueled my love for freestyle records. The Latin Rascals with their copy-and-paste edits and those jacking beats can’t be denied, particularly when those housey pianos are laid on top, produce an early example of Pet Shop Boys looking at a genre outside of their normal work, deciding they like it, and then doing a song in said genre. (See also: epic house with “For your own good,” and drum and bass with “Betrayed.”)
“Domino dancing” is another song based on a Pete Andreas’s actions; this time, his quite-literal dancing when winning at the titular game, but this time it’s used much less literally than on “I want a dog.” I’ve always liked how the AIDS-metaphor lyrics (young men dancing and falling to an unseen assailant) explore jealousy, anger, and loss in a fantastic, loud dance-music setting, a thematic inversion that is a classic hallmark of the Pet Shop Boys sound. One could easily hand the words over to a singer-songwriter sort and have the sort of mopey tune that makes people in coffeehouses swoon into their lattes. I’m picturing something like Jose Feliciano’s aching version of “California Dreamin’,” a record that has literally make me stop everything for a few moments and just gape a bit.
But that’s not what the song in question sounds like, is it? Introspective features the Disco Mix version from the 12″ single and it has some really inspired moments: the one-minute build up to the first verse with horns blaring and keys tinkling as the underpinning just bounces right along; another sing-spoken bit - ‘When you look around you wonder / do you play to win / or are you just a bad loser’ with guitar underneath; those tight, tight beat edits that hit around 4:50 that practically scream ‘Remix!’ and the final two and half minutes that give the crowd plenty of hands-in-the-air moments. On top of it all, there’s that synth line that I end up reciting in my sleep, an insistent refrain that adds acid house sensibilities to Latino flourishes.
Sadly, “Domino dancing” was the end of Pet Shop Boys’ reign in the US charts. An Eric Watson video that was a little too homoerotic for MTV (apparently unintentionally so) kept the song from hitting the charts as hard as it should and the band slid into an SNL joke in America well before they should have, particularly considering the other acts that have manages to maintain a following who emerged in the same period.
5.
Originally written and produced by Pet Shop Boys for Patsy Kensit’s outfit Eighth Wonder, Tennant and Lowe’s take is a superior, darker version that, oddly enough, reached its apotheosis with the live version on the Performance tour. Some, including the esteemed Wayne Studer, have stated that the lyrics are cryptic, that there’s a hidden meaning, partially because of the use of sounds from the Paris Student Riots in the 1960s, but I’ve always found them fairly straightforward, telling the story of one man coming to grips with his poisonous relationship with another and standing up for himself finally. While there are metaphorical oddities - ‘Tonight the streets are full of actors,’ the way in which Tennant emphatically repeats ‘If I was you / if I was you / I wouldn’t treat me the way you do’ and cinematic sound bring up a clear imagine in my mind. I do like the one interpretation mentioned on Studer’s site in which the song serves as Pet Shop Boys’ response to pop journalists exploring their private lives, particularly at a time when coming out really was the career-death many made it out to be. One of my favorite bits is the extended instrumental passage starting at around 3:20 with the riot samples and that itchy synth line bubbling right above jackhammer beats before the strings kick in and the song swells for one last chorus.
6.
Since “Always on my mind” came out before I was a regular singles buyer - I’d buy the occasional tune, but never actively hunted them, instead stumbling upon something like ABC’s “When Smokey Sings” and deciding I needed it - I never had the original chart-topping version of the song and for a good three or four year stretch, the extended “Always on my mind / In my house” was how I thought of the song, despite having heard the single version a few times on the radio and enjoying it. (I’ve always kicked myself for not buying the short-lived hybrid two-pack that EMI America came out with that featured Actually and the “Always on my mind” CD single. I just didn’t think it was that important. Ah, the young trainspotter, not yet in full bloom.)
“Always on my mind / In my house,” as presented on Introspective certainly start off much more restrained than the maximal, blaring single version of the Elvis Presley cover. For much of the song, there’s little more than a bassline, drums, sparse synth pads and Tennant’s vocals, providing an interesting blend of the pop-tastic, all-engines-on-full take that the single provides and the traditional, plaintive version. Tennant’s voice here is almost fragile in places, displaying his weaknesses to great effect, particularly in the choruses, and it help builds the track quite brilliantly. His vocals get stronger and more pop-oriented as the track moves through the Pet Shop Boys-composed “In my house” portion and finally, at the 5:25 mark (heralded by a single synth stab) exploding into something that very much resembles the single version. I’ve often thought that Introspective was constructed like a DJ set with proper ebbs and flows with last four minutes of this track being the peak before one last singalong bit and the club doors being flung open.
7.
“It’s alright” is the second cover version on this album and, especially as compared to Vegas-era Elvis covered on “Always on my mind,” is much more emblematic of the duo as tastemakers. What was a jacking Chicago house track with a cultish following by Sterling Void is transmogrified into something quite epic by the duo with help from Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson, surgically inserting pop and disco sensibilities with a few extra lyrics and a soupçon of gospel-inspired backing vocals. I’ve always preferred the single version of this track, which features additional lyrics from Tennant, and a more pop-oriented production, but the album take fits in very nicely with the rest of Introspective, providing one last clap-and-sing-along for the listener. The entire track is sturdy but the best bit for me may well be Neil Tennant’s “I hope it’s gonna be alright,” casually stated and looped over the last few seconds over a glorious choral swell.
8.
Why do I listen to Introspective as much as I do? A few factors are at play here: the relative shortness certainly helps. It’s only six songs, which still breaks down to less than an hour, even with the extended remixes that form the album’s theme. On top of that, the album is very much an audio artifact of its time, casually blending disparate dance genres with Pet Shop Boys’ pop tendencies, a single-act mixtape that gave me a glimpse at what else was out there and still provides me waypoints in my listening to this day. Then there’s the fact that it really is a great little package of tunes. I never skip past anything and everything is eminently listenable. While other records may have greater artistic aims (Behaviour) or better pop songs (Very,) Introspective is the auditory equivalent of a great pair of jeans, form-fitting and holding everything in just the right place.