Disco de Pet Shop Boys: “Actually”

This is definately the album that was a catalyst for their career. With the popularity of their first album PLEASE, this album exceeded everyone's expectations and since then they have been known as the band that always has a hit every couple of years. Bands come and go, some flourish for years and then eventually disappear.

Pet Shop Boys are quoted as one of the first bands that continually keep going regardless of the era or fads that pass through. Their music is original for any decade. This album ACTUALLY is a perfect example of their creative intelligence and wit just beginning.

What makes this album marked as a favorite among fans is not just that half the songs were radio hits, it's more that every song is unique and sounds completely different from the next track. They experiment with numerous types of styles, and often go from electronic to a sudden orchestra of strings and trumpets.

This kind of strange and sudden diversity is their trademark. ACTUALLY is the album that states that this was just the beginning; bringing popular tunes in a more intelligent and sensual manner that goes deep into the soul, and with each new album since they continued to touch listeners through classical, electronic, rock, and even operatic pieces.

An example is the track "Hit Music"--very typical 80's, fun and simple to listen to. In their own blunt way, Pet Shop Boys will go to a slow and romantic pace of action, that lasts for only a few seconds, if not a full minute. But always knowing to bring audiences back to the original sound, they tempt our hearts with quite beautiful, flirtatious chords that wink at you, and stop...and then begin again. This could be why they are known for their live concerts seeming like "stories performed", actors playing out roles as they sing to the side of the stage. It's no wonder why they are asked to write hip musicals. And why not? It's hip music.

Great album to start off with; and just a preview of albums to come in the 90's and into the 21st century.

When the Pet Shop Boys were working on the second album their original working title was JEALOUSY but then they changed to the

strangely adverbal "actually". Such a subtle title for a brilliant album.

"One More Chance" was one of the first songs Chris and Neil ever wrote. It was one of their first singles too. But here it gets a high production rework with sound effects of screaching cars and city sounds. Brilliant hi-NRG!

"What Have I Done to Deserve This" a mouthful of a title that sounds like a Smiths song! But indeed it is PSB with Dusty Springfield on this top 10 hit where Neil and Dusty's voices melt beautifully!

"Shopping" is a statement on buying and selling, on society and influence. "We're buying and selling your history...we're shopping".

"Rent" seems so simple at first. The confessions of a kept perosn in a relationship where love is calculated by money and presents. So wonderful Neil really delivers a wonderful vocal on this with the line "i love you, you pay my rent". But further sinsister is Neil chanting at the end the refraim from a Buddy Holly classic "it's easy it's so easy..." The effect is haunting and beautiful.

"Hit Music" brings you back to the dancefloor with the sounds of late 70s eurodisco. So roll up the rug and play this tune and turn your bedroom into discoland.

"It Couldn't Happen Here" was also the title of the movie the PSBoys made. Everyone sees horrors happening in other places and say it couldn't happen here. Moody and atmospheric this song, a very underated song!

"It's a Sin" was an over the top video with the seven deadly sins personified with Neil getting excommunicated! He sings about how growing up in the church he was taught that sin was unescapable. "everywhere I'm going to...it's a sin!".

"I Want to Wake Up" is a personal fave of mine! Just because of the line "i stood at the kitchen sink radio playing, songs like 'Tainted Love' and 'Love is Strange'"!

"Heart" uses a special vocal sampling of vowel sounds mixed and arranged into a rhythm pattern which creates the back beat of this number 1 single in the UK!

"King's Cross" brings us feelings of loss and regret. Unusal way to end an album on a down note but the PSBoys knew what they were doing as this song will stay with you long after hearing.

So have a Heart! It's a Sin not to give this CD One More Chance!

The Pet Shop Boys made a bit of a splash with their first album 'Please', and their greatest hit song from that album, 'West End Girls' remains the classic Pet Shop Boys song, but it took 'Actually' to establish the duo as a group with credibility and staying power. With this album, the Pet Shop Boys became one of the major groups of the 1980s.

The songs on this album are ironic, witty, urbane--all things would not normally associate with pop/dance music. And, surprisingly, none of this intellectual content seems to interfere with the beat and bop as crowds bounce around on the dance floor.

The magnum opus of this album is probably the collaborative effort the Pet Shop Boys did with Dusty Springfield, entitled 'What Have I Done to Deserve This?' This song showcased Dusty, who had been neglected for years by the music establishment, and brought attention to both Dusty and the Pet Shop Boys as being able to reach just a bit further than anyone had previously realised.

The song 'It's a Sin' was a song very much in tune with the hedonistic, decadent London (and New York/California) nightlife, capturing the bittersweet flavour of life on the wild side. Of course, this was also the 'don't ask-don't tell coming out' song for the Boys (more than a decade before they would 'officially' come out), but then, their music reached different levels so that this never was that much of an issue (people variously heard and didn't hear what they wanted to hear in this song). The Roman Catholic Church even asked Neil Tennant to comment in one of their sectarian magazines, remarking that 'no one talks about sin any more'. Rather reminds me of the US Navy opting to use the Village People's 'In the Navy' for recruiting before realising the undertones (or perhaps, overtones, in their case).

Shortly after this album was completed, the Pet Shop Boys did their one-and-only feature film (and may we be spared from such an experiment in the future). It went on for much too long with contrived scenes and no real plot, trying too self-consciously to be artistic and pop-culture-accessible at the same time, weaving together songs (that are subtle and hard to characterise in the first place) into a pastiche of events that didn't flow well.

After this album also, the Pet Shop Boys began their habit of doing a remake after each major album--in this case, it was 'Always on My Mind', a high-tempo pull-out-all-the-stops disco version that remained popular in dance clubs for years, and can still fill the floor on most nights.

In all, if you were to have only one Pet Shop Boys album, opt for Discography. However, if you have room in your collection for two, include this one. The minor songs ('Rent', which was popular in Europe and Japan but not America; 'King's Cross'; 'It couldn't happen here') are great and worth a hearing.

that I still listen to this album 15 years after its publication in 1987. I was 15 years old at that time and this album with its smash-hit singles was sweeping around..I was not the die-hard fan then; that would be achieved soon later, with the release of "Always On My Mind". But this album always dazzled and still dazzles me with the fantastic opening piece "One more chance" with its cheeky sound, amazing vocal-displaying song by Springfield "What have I done To deserve this", and the mind-boggling "Rent". But the last five tracks (side B on those good old LP days) are simply the best five songs I have ever listened to. "It's A Sin", "I want to wake up" and "Heart" always make me up to my feet and dance around, with a sense of sorrow and longing...But the real gems are simply "It could not happen here" and "King"s Cross", two hard-striking, dark, haunting, heart-piercing ballads: the only two songs that have ever made me cry. Hands down, I cannot help myself but listen to them again&again in a nostalgic deja-vu. I guess I should thank Pet Shop Boys; actually, for what they have all given to me. Will there be any better pop duo or group around? I do not think so and how I wish that Britney Spears or Nsync or other yo-yo (pop)groups or singers just listened to PSB and learnt about lyric-writing, composition and the indispensable thing in music: Songwriting

Among many other accomplishments, at their creative and stylish peak the Pet Shop Boys were responsible for contributing hugely to the definition of a more solid, intellectual and sophisticated face of 80's synth-pop, far from the stereotypes of superficiallity and sterillity atributed by many exceptics to the genre, without losing its funny, catchy shape of party music. Their second album shows Tennant's tiny speak-singing voice going more traditionally melodic, but yet working as a mere channel to the transmission of words, even if it also projects comfort. This album offers a much more focused songwriting then that of their also very good debut, and there is a lot of fun and hits to enjoy here: their first UK #1 'Heart', the lush midtempo 'Rent' and the bombing megahit 'It's A Sin'. The rest of the songs match the melodic and lyric quality of the choosed singles and, as a whole, this album works of an explanation to the question "Why the f**** are there so many bands immitating and re-processing typical 80's synthpop?".