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I just learned this week that the Pet Shop Boys are releasing a new album this year. They are the rare music group (in this case, specifically, a duo) where my fandom has actually grown stronger over the decades: in contrast to many other artists I was far more obsessed with in younger years, I continue to listen to their entire discography with unusual regularity. The fact that they continue releasing new music at a consistent cadence is no doubt a contributor to that, and the fact that they have released several late-career albums that are fantastic.
And: they are
old. I mean, not exactly ancient, but very old by typical pop singer standards. Singer Niel Tenanant, who was 31 when their debut album
Please was released in 1986 (even that's pretty old by debut pop album standards), will be 70 years old this coming July. Keyboardist Chris Lowe, who is surprisingly several years younger than Niel, was 26 when
Please was released and will be 65 years old in October.
Nonetheless, the album they are set to release in April, will be their 15th.
Back in the eighties, their first three albums were each released a year apart, in 1986, 1987 and 1988. Their fourth was released two years later, in 1990. Between then and 2002, they released an album every three years. When they released
Fundamental in 2006, it was their first four-year break, followed by three again, followed by four again—and then, quite unusually, they released
Elysium and
Electric (both wonderful) back to back in 2012 and 2013.
Super, one of my all-time favorites, was released three years later in 2016; the two albums since have been released four years apart, although one could plausibly assume the pandemic was a factor there.
With this new album they'll actually have as many studio albums as Madonna. (I always count 1990's
I'm Breathless: Music From and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy, even though it never gets counted in other "official" discographies because it gets categorized as a "soundtrack," which is stupid because a) it has original content not in the movie; and b) every single track is a Madonna song.)
Anyway I like the new Pet Shop Boys single and am excited for the new album—somewhat cautioiusly, as their
Hotspot from 2020 was actually their weakest album in like two decades. You can't win them all.
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What else? Not much. I took the trains home last night to save time, and I learned something definitive: although the #8 that goes up Denny Way is the one transit option that involves no transfers, it's never reliably the fastest choice. That bus passed me right as I reached Denny Way on my walk to the Monorail station at Seattle Center, so I decided to track when it reached its stop at 15th and John on Capitol Hill. It was still a minute away from reaching that stop by the time I was arriving at my building, and this was after ten-minute walks, both from work to the Monorail and from Capitol Hill Light Rail Station to home! I'd have gotten home ten minutes later had I ridden the #8, which left at roughly the same time I did.
What a stupid bus!
Anyway, I was home about half an hour, barely long enough to make and eat veggie burgers for dinner. Then I took a bus back downtown to see a movie, my first I saw in a theater (or reviewed) in nearly two weeks (twelve days): I saw
Lisa Frankenstein. Which was . . . okay. And that was about what I expected. But, in the last two weeks, it was the best option among movies I had not yet seen.
It was a bit of an irony, as I had an unusually large number, 14, of movies on my working log for 2024 in January. I'll be lucky if I get five or six in for February, with a dry spot of nearly two weeks. I hope to go to my next one on Friday.
I managed to catch a bus back up the hill after the movie, at which time I wrote the review.
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[posted 12:33 pm]
