I wish I lived my life free-and-easier - I need to find a new bohemia

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

03/05/24 : Nonetheless - Pet Shop Boys

I've liked a lot of Pet Shop Boys singles, but they were a lonnnng time ago - I don't think I've listened to any of their albums since Very, from 1993.  So I've no idea what to expect from this - I'm not expecting it to be hateful, but it might be somewhat dull.

Nope - it's alright actually (or maybe even better than that!).  It's a bit slower tempo across the board than I'd like, but it's certainly not dull.  They're all well put together with quite a strong orchestral/disco vibe (that's a thing, right?) and some interesting lyrics.  None of the tracks particularly jumped out at me except that "Dancing Star", but only because it gave me strong "Lucky Star" vibes.  But I quite liked the album and it feels like it would be worth a relisten.

We're at #2 in the charts this week with a new entry and the rest of the top five are Taylor Swift, The Weeknd  (WHY?!?), Olivia Rodrigo and St Vincent (another new entry, which I checked out and I really quite liked).  We've got another couple of new entries in the top ten - Jess Glynne (#6) and The Zutons (#7 - I started listened to this and quite liked it).

Last week I confidently stated that Taylor would stay at #1 and I suspect the boys didn't come too close to knocking her off.  I've considerably less confidence in stating that they'll drop to #35 - I feel it deserves more than that but it's tricky to know who listen to Pet Shop Boys albums (but obviously plenty of people do).  And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, two in the top thirty (Lover sneaking in at #30, which is one I remember absolutely nothing about) and eight albums in the entire chart.

Wikipedia tells us this is their fifteenth studio album and comes four years after their last one (Hotspot, which I didn't get to listen to).  Neil Tennant says that every track features an orchestra, which is somewhat of an exaggeration but there can't be too many recent albums that feature three flugelhorn players, three French horn players, four cellists and fourteen violinists.  The critics were very complimentary about it and it's also done well commercially, getting to #3 in Germany and Australia and #4 in Belgium.

"Customers also listened to" Stephen Duffy, Kylie Minogue, Kim Wilde and Depeche Mode - which is a slightly odd mix.  I didn't mind this at all though and will make an effort to revisit it (and will undoubtedly fail).

26/04/24 - I still don't understand
10/05/24 - It's no Future Nostalgia

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