Review 1 of 1

Deleanu writes:

5of 5 Stars

There have not been too many albums as influential as ACTUALLY in the 1980's. ACTUALLY uses pop as artifice, to counterbalance the brightness of the intelligent lyrics wrote by the duo, much as, let's say, Stravinsky uses ragtime in L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT. With the Pet Shop Boys, however, pop becomes assimilated into high-brow musical thinking, mainly in their rhythms and, to some extent, in synthesizer-inflected Impressionist harmonies, not unlike Debussy's. The two Pet Shop Boys are concerned with wit and musical puns and start to think consciously of aesthetic expression. Pop music, in their case, has become part of that expression, but it could have been anything else, jazz, salsa or New Age. There's much interest in the structure and in the imaginative keyboard writing, as well as in its pointers to the concert form, but somehow it doesn't come off emotionally. Some music critics suggest a dark, almost Gothic-like undercurrent, which, if so, has escaped me.

No doubts at all about the extraordinary quality of the album, however. Despite its electronic instrumentation, it feels like a classical music concerto, with virtuosity from the soloist and power not so much from instrumental mass, but, again, from powerfully imaginative instrumental color. Not only is the synthi-pop element completely absorbed, but the duo put it in the service of their expressive needs. Tennant and Lowe probably think of themselves as doomed poets, like the Pre-Raphaelites and the Decadents. For their art, they would commit Great Sins. It's not really a profession to aspire to, and it's interesting that, the quality of their art aside, they became, according to the critics, dull live performers. However, they infest their concerts like malignant sprites. Here indeed is a grotesque, dark undercurrent, especially when you realize how much of the Pet Shop Boys themes use distorted versions of damnation themes. IT'S A SIN, the duo's masterpiece on this album, might be a good example. This is emphasized by the association of the group with the great English director Derek Jarmann, the autor of such cinematographic masterpieces as WITTGENSTEIN, CARAVAGGIO, and THE LAST OF ENGLAND. In fact, ACTUALLY's generating motive turns out to have been an angry variant of this visual element of the damned soul. How else could we perceive such songs as RENT, SHOPPING, and WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS? In these wonderful pieces there is pure psychic desolation. The Pet Shop Boys turn in a bang-up job, with crisp rhythm and wonderful ensemble work. One must notice the hysteria beneath the album's very urbane surface. And that's because ACTUALLY is an album that created history. History in the making. DANIEL DELEANU

Jul 5, 2006 18:27:51