Friday, 19 November, 1999, 21:57 GMT
CD Review: Pet Shop Boys

Pet Shop Boys: Disappointing album

By the BBC's Chris Charles

If Neil Tennant were ever to resume his career as a teen-pop journalist, I wonder what he would make of the Pet Shop Boys?

Chances are he would pontificate about them being as relevant and important now as they were 15 years ago - dismissing more realistic claims that they were, by the turn of the century, a spent force.

Tennant has already gone on record as saying Nightlife "reminds me of one of those Frank Sinatra albums from the 50s...it's a sort of modern pop-dance version of one of those".

They must have sent me the wrong CD.

But wait, delve into the lyrics on In Denial - a dreary 'father/daughter' duet with Kylie - and you find a more realistic assessment of the current situation. "I feel like quitting this job for a while, getting away before it gets any worse today", he groans.

The words of a man whose heart is no longer in it, one suspects.

Sure, there are sprinklings of magic dust within Nightlife that briefly raise expectations.

For Your Own Good, for instance, is a rousing opener which mixes Twin Peaks mystique with thumping beats and trippy synths - spoiled only by that familiar nasal whine.

Similarly, the hip-hopping Happiness Is An Option, with its whispered rhetoric about bodies, beds and Russians offers a ray of hope, but it is a faint flicker in a large, grey area.

You only have to hear the singles for the broader, inferior picture.

Tennant is joined by Kylie Minogue on vocals for one track

I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More (with apologies to the Manics) is pure disco claptrap, while the Village People-inspired New York City Boy is about as funny as mouth ulcers.

Of the rest, Closer To Heaven is a mild irritant, Radiophonic is traditional Europap and You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk is a cracking title (and that's it).

Not that the PSB faithful care a jot what I or anybody else thinks. They'll still be descending in their droves on a record store near you eager to pick up this not-so-magnificent seventh long player.

Lenny Beige, you can rest easy once more - for this certainly won't raise any eyebrows.