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June 30, 2006
Sadly, I have to express my disappointment with Fundamental, the new Pet Shop Boys album. I'm usually a big fan of the songwriting and production choices of Tennant and Lowe, but this set shows some poor decision making on both fronts. Although parts of the album are worthwhile, one of the themes that kept creeping into my mind with repeated listenings was that most of these songs would have only qualified as b-sides during the Behaviour or Very eras. In terms of general listenability, this album is probably about as spotty as Bilingual, and a bit less substantive because it is trying hard only to be a pop masterpiece.
The Boys made one really good choice, which was to bring in legendary producer Trevor Horn to polish up the tracks and bring his signature huge sound to the proceedings. When it works, it works well. Horn makes "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show," the album's track 2 anchor, a synth-rock masterpiece even though the song is not really up there with classic PSB masterpieces. Ditto "I'm with Stupid," the first single, which has a huge, classic electro-pop production sound that polishes over the fact that the song is not particularly dense. But my praise pretty much ends there. The album opens with an unmitigated disaster, "Psychological," which is probably one of the worst songs to ever appear as a PSB album, and here it's track 1. It was supposed to serve as an intro of some kind, but it just lays there hookless like a cadaver. Then, the album alternates between uptempo tracks and some slower ballad numbers. The aforementioned production masterpiece "The Sodom and Gomorrah Show" sounds great, but I wondered whether the world really needed this track so soon after "The Barry Williams Show," from Peter Gabriel's Up, which I enjoyed a bit more as a song. The ballads eventually outnumber and overwhelm the more poppy dance tracks. Only "Casanova in Hell" strikes me as being worthy; the other four ballads--"I Made My Excuses and Left," the Diane Warren number "Numb," and especially "Luna Park" and "Indefinite Leave to Remain," are pleasant enough but simply don't have much traction. Earlier PSB ballads, even ones on Release like "Love Is a Catastrophe" and "Birthday Boy," were far better. (This is to say nothing of "Only The Wind," "Jealousy," "Liberation" and "Dreaming of the Queen.") Neil's vocal performances on these tracks are also not particularly good, sounding a bit too autotuned and bright. The futurist/electro track "Twentieth Century" is a nice idea but suffers from underdevelopment and gets buried as track 10 of 12. The album ends with the dance track "Integral," the Boys' grandiose protest of Britain's proposed ID card system. It's a nice song, and Chris even gets in a Bobby O-esque synth riff, but it's too little, too late. After the sluggishness of the rest of the album, the track feels more than a little desperate and out of place. |