Day 19: Pet Shop Boys – Actually

Album cover courtesy of Parlophone

While I’ve never heard a Pet Shop Boys song that I didn’t like, I’ve never actually sat down to listen to Pet Shop Boys. I googled what their best album was, and off I went with their 1987 release, Actually.

Just as I suspected, it’s banger after banger. It feels very suitable for a Friday. It feels like something that should be listened to in a place that’s neon-lit and sticky-floored, but in a car on my way to a semi-local TK Maxx had to do for now. The song “Shopping” felt very appropriate for my wine glass buying excursion, but it’s actually biting commentary about Margaret Thatcher privatising utilities. I shook my fist at the ground to show my disapproval towards the fiery pits where she resides.

Some of the darker themes of the album, Thatcherism and the AIDS crisis, are explored in a way that gives a bit of insight of what it was to be alive in the UK in the 80s, especially as a gay man. I didn’t expect the explicitly political songs, like “King’s Cross” or “It Couldn’t Happen Here” but they’re great. There’s a real lightness to the album, too. “It’s a Sin” is an absolute all-time banger, which was apparently written as a camp joke about sex as a sin, with the Latin prayer at the end that’s partly translated as “I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, act and omission”.

Turns out that I love synth-pop. I’ve always known that I enjoy it, but I guess I just didn’t know just how much. This right here is another great win for my album project. I’ll give this one a 9/10. It’s going into rotation, I see a lot of Pet Shop Boys in my future.

Also, bonkers fact about this album: Ennio Morricone and Angelo Badalamenti both have songwriting credits on it.