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 Tender is the night that one first hears that beautiful noise. The sound
carries the often-closeted gay social codes out onto the open currents of
air. It resonates with pangs of recognition and the pains of stifled
articulation. Their music is liberation. You can dance to it. And joy to it
and cry to it. I am the Pet Shop Boys.
The Pets delineate the intimate sources of the self-consciousness that informs contemporary social-political-spiritual existence. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe always consider the ways that desire - sexual and spiritual longing - manifest themselves in reality: economics, politics, art and romance. Their latest collection of hit singles, PopArt - Pet Shop Boys The Hits, exemplifies their special form of fun: moral and democratic, witty and devastating. PopArt is being released as a double-disc and, also, a boxed triple-disc with the limited edition "PopArtMix", which includes a third CD of re-mixes. PopArt is no mere chronological collection of the Pets singles that ranked in the British Top 20. Instead, the Pets ingeniously reorganize the 35 songs (2 of which are new), providing the tracks with fresh intensity: they've never sounded better. PopArt proves the ideal introduction to, what is for me, the catalogue that forms the standard for Queer art as well as, for those already familiar with the Pets, the perfect opportunity for reflection upon an undeniable summit. Simply: pop art gets no better. The two discs separate the songs according to these themes: "Pop" (the title of the first disc) and "Art" (the title of the second). To investigate the significance of this division, one might marvel at the two new tracks. "Miracles" is Track 9 on "Pop". "Flamboyant" is Track 3 on "Art". "Miracles" is aptly titled because the Pets infuse an out gay sensibility and worldliness into explicitly pop forms (synth and techno dance music). That is one of the genuine miracles of pop culture. Of course, "Miracles" deals with the most prevalent subject of pop music: romantic love. To express that great phenomenon, The Pets run through a catalogue of miracles:
Thunder is silent before you Roses bloom to adore you, too Miracles happen when you're around. They propose romantic love as an avenue for increased sensitivity, the impetus for metaphorical thinking. Tennant sings, The sunset is deeper and longer The scent of the jasmine is stronger. By pairing down the elements of the love song to their metaphorical elements, the Pets encourage the listener to reevaluate pop. This is the nature of their art, but it serves a pop purpose. "Miracles" is necessarily book-ended by "Heart" - an account of the physical responses to sex attraction - and "Love Comes Quickly" - an existential spin on love. "Miracles" is a rapturous dance track: a communal celebration of the shared emotion of love. The dance beats are kicked off by the most overtly religious image in "Miracles." It validates love, metaphor and faith: Being with you No matter where Sunlight breaks through. "Miracles" gains specific political urgency within its context on PopArt as an anti-homophobia argument. Homophobia as faithlessness. On "Art", the Pets position "Flamboyant", the greatest strutting-down-the-street song since the Pets' own "Sexy Northerner", as the epitome of their sophistication. It's a dry satire of and valentine to gay flamboyance and excess: Everyday all the public must know Where you are what you do Cuz your life is a show And you're so flamboyant. Exhibiting the expanse of their art and its challenge, Tennant breaks 4 love: Every actor needs an audience Every action is a performance It all takes courage you know When just crossing the street Well, it's almost heroic You're so flamboyant. The infectious cleverness of the kind critique on "Flamboyant" transitions into the heartbreaking opus of contemporary (gay-lib, AIDS-era) gay existence, "Being Boring." Playwright Benjamin Kessler calls the move from "Flamboyant" to "Being Boring" "a kick in the head." "Pop" externalizes the emotions of its collective audience in metaphor. "Art" is an ethical challenge: to provide as rich and challenging a context for those emotions. Pop, meet Art. PopArt opens with "Go West" (from The Village People) and closes with "Somewhere" (from West Side Story) - two masterpiece covers that reveal two artists' constant engagement and benevolence. PopArt is transcendent. Feeling every beat: "We're the Pet Shop Boys." |
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