The 1980s musical scene was a golden age of synthesiser music. Led by the innovative and compelling song “Video Killed the Radio Star” (1979) by Buggles, the genre simply exploded as devices such as the Roland TR-808 drum machine powered a new wave of sonic innovation. At the cutting edge of these musical developments was a former news editor of “Smash Hits”, Mr Neil Francis Tennant, who dreamed of pop stardom himself. He teamed up with Chris Lowe, whom he had met in an electronics store off the King’s Road in London, to form one of the most iconic bands of the 1980s and beyond – the Pet Shop Boys. They exploded onto the musical scene with the gritty, cutting and sardonic classic “West End Girls”, a definitive transatlantic number one and a song that is likely to bring back 1980s memories with a Proustian rush.
The album that spawned the song, Please (1986), stands as a high watermark in 1980s electronica. The ironic ballad “Opportunities” reveals Thatcherite Eighties London as its rawest form; the fact that so many took the lyrics “Let’s Make Lots of Money” literally is a testament to the spirit of that particular age. The follow-up album “Actually” (1987) reveals many more facets to the band, with the synthesised pomp of “It’s a sin” competing with the mournful urban dereliction of “King’s Cross” and the pulsating disco beat of “Heart”. For many fans, however, it is “Behaviour” (1990) that remains the Pet Shop Boys’ most complex, nuanced and evolved album. This was followed by the barnstorming tour de force of “Very” (1993) with its anthemic horizons and computer-generated imagery.
The Pet Shop Boys have subsequently become an institution of British pop music. Their triumphant synthesised return in “Fundamental” (2007) was a pure slice of Eighties nostalgia, with songs such as “Integral” knowingly retrospective in tone and composition even while they echoed contemporary political concerns. In this one corner of British music, the spirit of the 1980s has never truly died.
