About the artist: It's the Pet Shop Boys! Neil Tennant! Chris Lowe! Dance and pop music legends. The most successful duo in the history of UK music. Since forming in 1981, PSB have scored 22 Top 10 hits in the UK, including four number ones, along with five Top 10 singles in the US. Although it is often listed the duo has sold over 100 million records worldwide, Tennant recently questioned this total in an interview, claiming it is much more like 50 million. But who is counting? 50 million. 100 million. The point is, these two have sold insane amounts of music since the original 1984 release of "West End Girls" and still show no signs of stopping 36 years later. Then there are all the honors, the awards. I could bore you and list them all here, but if it is truly of interest, just check their Wiki page and you'll get the point. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are music legends. End of story.
As someone who spent his teen years in the 80's, this is when my love of music truly was formed. On their last release, 2016's Super, Pet Shop Boys sang the story of "The Pop Kids", those of us who grew up loving pop music, and that was me in the 80's. Although George Michael and Duran Duran helped form my Big Four of the 80's, artists I followed and collected every release possible of, Pet Shop Boys took a back seat only to Prince. Sadly, of my two favorite artists of all time, only one is still with us, so it makes me cherish every new release from Pet Shop Boys all the more. And in these drastically different times for the music industry, where streaming is all the rage, PSB have never forgotten the fan base that was with them from the start and have been along for the entire ride. As artists totally in control of their catalog, they still release physical singles, with brand new non-album tracks, just like all those great vinyl and CD singles of the past. They know what their fans want, an old school fan base that still desires and supports physical releases with exclusive material, and they deliver with every album release.
About the album: Hotspot is the 14th studio album from Pet Shop Boys. It also completes their trilogy of albums recorded with producer Stuart Price. First was 2013's Electric, pure electronic dance music from start to finish with a lot of longer songs geared towards the dance floor. 2016's Super was next, a more straightforward pop album. Now we have Hotspot, the most eclectic of the three collaborations with Price. The album is in many ways a reflection of Berlin, where it was mostly recorded at the famous Hansa Studios. There are references to the city in a number of songs, most obviously the closing track "Wedding In Berlin".
Hotspot runs the gamut of the many styles Pet Shop Boys excel at. Need your dance fix? The album kicks right off with the euphoric "Will-O-The-Wisp" and it's a storming track. There is also "I Don't Wanna",a song Tennant mentioned was intended as something they would have written for Madonna. Need more pop hits from the pop kids? "Happy People" has a 90's synth-pop vibe to it, a song that easily could have fit on an album like Very. "Dreamland", a duet with Olly Alexander of Years & Years, and the album's lead single, has a chorus that will implant itself in your brain, a truly catchy, classic PSB pop song. Need something a little different from Neil and Chris? Look no further than the current single "Monkey Business", a slice of soulful dance funk with a shimmering keyboard line that sounds designed to fill dance floors around the world. You can't miss the music video for this one either. First off, it's the first video to feature Neil and Chris since 2013's "Thursday", but more importantly, THAT CHRIS LOWE CHOREOGRAPHY! An insanely fun video for an insanely fun song.
Where Hotspot differs from the two previous Price produced full lengths is in the slower material. There was one ballad on the last two albums combined. Here there are four, almost half the album. I've always felt Pet Shop Boys' catalog of ballads was overlooked in favor of their dance floor fillers and on Hotspot they add to their list of superlative slow jams. "You Are The One" is a reflective love song and "Only The Dark" brings an electro feel to its tale of love. Single "Burning The Heather" would have fit perfectly on 2002's Release. Featuring ex-Suede member Bernard Butler on acoustic guitar, the wistful, introspective track is a new PSB classic, simply a gorgeous melodic acoustic pop/rock song. Rounding out the ballads is my personal favorite, "Hoping For A Miracle". This one sounds like it could have been cut from Behaviour at the last second, waiting for the right album to appear on. Musically it is stunningly beautifully, lyrically it affirms that Tennant remains one of the best lyricists of his time. It has been speculated the tale of someone out of hope refers to both Brexit and Boris Johnson, but Tennant says the song is another inspired by Tony Blair. Regardless of the inspiration, the lyrics universally fit any number of scenarios. It's a masterpiece of songwriting.
The only song that doesn't work for me on Hotspot is album closer "Wedding In Berlin". Musically it's fine, a slice of dance pop that incorporates Mendelssohn's "Wedding March", but the rather simplistic lyrics seem below the high standards Tennant always sets for himself. Maybe that's the point, the celebration of marriage equality doesn't need too deep of a lyrical dive, and it's not a bad song, just the weakest of an otherwise strong showing. And that is one thing you can't take away from Pet Shop Boys. Their consistency. Fourteen albums into a marvelous career, they've yet to deliver a bad record. Hotspot will go down as one of the year's best when 2020 comes to a close.
Favorite tracks: "Hoping For A Miracle", "Will-O-The-Wisp", "Monkey Business", "Burning The Heather"
Hotspot was released January 24th, 2020 via the x2 Recordings label.
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