Pet Shop Boys - Yes

The good thing about Ipods ( or any personal music player, i have no corporate affiliations ) is that your musical guilty pleasures are generally kept a secret from the outside world. For all you know that long haired guy with the piercings and trenchcoat on the train is listening to Rammstein when really he is tapping along to Dido. Everyone has their own musical guilty pleasure, i'm somewhat ashamed to admit that i think madonna's 'confessions from a dance floor' is one of the greatest dance albums of all time, and i listen to it regularly. I happen to know for a fact that my dad thinks 'd:reams' "you're the best thing" is possibly the best song every written. So in the spirit of these revelations i'll go ahead and say this; i like the pet shop boys. There, i've said it. now we can all get on with our lives. It was with some intrigue that i decided to listen to PSB's latest effort, i mean my whole basis for liking the is from two 80's albums, 'Please' and 'Actually' plus their 1993 effort 'Very', so my knowledge of what they had done in the 16 years since is pretty vague. And whilst they have had numerous releases in this time and many collaborations the basis of their music hasn't changed; moody electro pop, the breathy voice of neil tennant, some atrocious rhyming lyrics and overall some catchy songs. The single "love etc." is PSB at their best. So are the pet shop boys still a guilty pleasure? Australia's hottest 'electro' outfit 'The Presets' won wide acclaim last year for making what was effectively an album that sounded a lot like PSB. If the mocking i got from my colleagues when they found the album on my Ipod is anything to go by then the answer to that question is yes. definitely yes.