Pet Shop Boys - Smash!
You've both made such a little go a very long way
So, here we have the 4th singles compilation from a band that will never better the name of their debut collection Discography. They blew that title in 1991 as a bookend to their imperial phase (it’s illegal to neglect citing Neil Tennant’s phrase when describing the period in which a band can do no wrong). For a time in 1987 the public took the odd couple to their heart, rewarding the band guaranteed top 10 hits, as the erudite Tennant swished ahead of the inscrutably cool Chris Lowe in baseball caps, inflatable Issey Miyake jackets and sunglasses.
The chart performance wheels wobbled with 1990’s autumnal Behaviour album, followed by a hi-NRG cover of U2’s Where the streets have no name smacking of a cover version to reassert control. It’s clever mash-up (did they invent it?!) with Frankie Valli’s Can’t take my eyes off you has weathered well, and possibly assisted in swerving U2 from the pomposity of Rattle and Hum into their creative peak characterised by the playfulness of lemons, Trabants and Zoo stations in 1991.
Ironically chart positions were less guaranteed from 1989’s Sterling Void cover It’s alright onwards, although to the backdrop of eternal 3ams and Shaman moving any mountain they managed a second wind of the Very album era, led by Go West and the massive crunch of a riff on comeback calling card Can you forgive her? in 1993.
Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys are known for a certain wryness and in their own pomp might have even considered Wry as a singles collection title. These days, with 2019’s Super and this collection Smash, they’ve fully embraced a Smash Hits shiny aesthetic. Their reputation for irony and aloof knowingness misrepresents them, although they only have themselves to blame. At their heart is an unbridled love of pop music, where it’s not a dirty word, but a medium through which to deliver heartfelt life observations from Tennant’s notebooks. It tracks their influences from sweaty New York clubs and Soho dive bars to south America, to crisp euro-disco and Russian choirs.
Despite currently recording a new album with James Ford (Arctic Monkeys/Depeche Mode), Pet Shop Boys these days are looking over their shoulder with their Dreamland hits tour and now this collection, but nostalgia first appeared in 1990 on the blissful Being boring. Despite it not actually an aim to be mature (it was an attempt to emulate Stock Aitken Waterman) it flopped at no.20, yet alerted musos that there might be more to this synth duo if you leaned in. The song’s irrepressible romance ‘I never dreamt that I would get to be/the creature that I always meant to be’ suggested survival beyond the singles charts, although the Tennant and Lowe of 1990 might have grinned at discussing their slippers with the fan club in 2023.
Unlike 2010’s Popart this collection is in chronological order (Chronological presumably a title reserved for the final boxset) from the moody earlier years to the poppier outbursts. This collection of 55 singles (inc. four number 1s), as with most of their output contain surprisingly few duffs and visit the romance of hopeful lovers (particularly on the elegant wah-wah guitar swish of Liberation and early underperforming elegance of Love comes quickly), heartbreak, dance floors, bicycle sheds, longing, wanderlust, escapism, via the occasional dip into architecture, East European history and Oscar Wilde.
Tennant’s distinct and clipped English vocal means they’re often accused of sounding the same with every song; not that it’s ever stopped AC/DC. However, this journey takes in the proto-rap of evergreen West End girls, the clipped staccato electro of Trevor Horn produced Minimal, a title he must have struggled with famed as he is for maximal. There’s New York house of the slight yet slippery Before, the tropical pop of Domino dancing, and the immaculate sultriness of oddly neglected 2004’s Flamboyant (a no.12 in UK) and I don’t know what you want but I can’t give it anymore.
Of course there’s the big boys: What have I done to deserve this?, It’s a sin, Rent, Always on my Mind and the throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-pop magnus of Left to my own devices, Go West and their last plumb at the charts in 2010 with the colossal Love, etc. via Xenomania. There are some misses, the cheesy, Start Price assisted PSB by numbers, Love Is a Bourgeois Construct takes a playful Purcell riff into cliché territory; it’s a distant cousin of Devices despite the similar droll and idle flaneur lyrical themes.
Despite the surprisingly ubiquitous celebratory Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is) over the summer of 1997 it’s likely the pubic stopped paying attention as early as halfway though this collection, which other than the limp Winner is their loss. They’d certainly be as wrong-footed by the guitars and university tours of the Release era with a subtle Johnny Marr assisted Home and dry and Oasis-esque (should that be Beatles-esque) I get along, as they would by the fragile slide-guitar melancholy of Craig Armstrong assisted You only tell you love me when you’re drunk in 2000.
Watchful fans will begrudge the omission of Where the streets…double A-side How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? and its 7” remix with languidly restrained beats courtesy of brothers in Rhythm. However, the vaguely undeveloped Burning the heather from 2020’s Hotspot, may not be missed.
They captured the zeitgeist despite being frequently and surprisingly out of step with it. As any fan knows this is the public face of a band with a wealth of hidden B-sides, remixes and live versions, but as a celebration of their commitment to the succinct idea of pop music Smash! Is a masterclass in song writing, production, collaborations, hats, and sleeve fonts that is unlikely to ever be bettered.
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