The Singles Jukebox

TSJ favorites return with a fond look backwards.

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[7.33]Abby Waysdorf: It’s the wistful, melancholy Pet Shop Boys that are showcased on this first single off the upcoming Super, following the well-received dance bombast of Electric. Not that there aren’t plenty of beats in “The Pop Kids,” of course, but it focuses more on the narrative abilities that have always been one of my (many) favorite things about the Pet Shop Boys. I’m likely not the only one haunting this website to have a particular memory that this song brings up For me, it’s a study-abroad in London in my late teens, going to nightclubs for the first time (I like it here, I love it, I am never going home). There’s a specificity and vividness to the characters and situation, with just that bit of wistfulness that has always been a hallmark of their narrative songs. There are always more stories to tell.
[9]

Iain Mew: Aside from the additional ’90s nostalgia beats lending a Saint Etienne edge, musically it’s pretty much in line with Electric median, which is no bad thing. With bits about the joy of clubbing too, it needs something to avoid being a “Vocal” retread, though, and gets it in the way that Neil Tennant weaves together memories of a music scene and of an individual relationship. The “us” in “they called us the pop kids” works ambiguity — it could be tight or loose, the same couple “we” as the rest of the song or a break to bring in a whole group of people — before “I loved you” snaps into focus. There’s a keen sense of how fitting in with a community and discovering how you and one specific person within it fit together can go hand in hand.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: A companion piece to Saint Etienne’s “Popular,” with more finality; to a certain shade of pop listener (i.e. me, and you’re here so maybe you) it’s like listening to your own eulogy. As you’d expect there are quotes — clearly they also loved “Road Rage” — house piano that goes harder and more emotively than the facsimiles they’d hear out now, and a love story with something unspoken that puts it in the past. Objectively it’s a bit slight, but only so it’s filled with your memories.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Saint Etienne covered this ground four years ago: an elegy honoring the kind of curating in which only future pop critics — pop kids —  would specialize. But Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are also pop musicians, which means they nostalgia might be garrulous but the sequencer is well programmed. They went out on Wednesday nights. They quoted the best bits. House piano was a constant. Growing in self-knowledge means appreciating sex: the “Oh! I like it here” is the most erotic Tennant moment in years. They were never being boring — they had too much time to find for their research.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Unabashed tribute or lavish eulogy to times in the past? Your best guess is as good as mine.
[6]

Cassy Gress: It may just be because I listened to it recently, but this sounds like a sequel to “Being Boring”, except with copious sound effects from “the nineteen, nine-ties.”  And it’s sort of astounding to me that Neil Tennant still apparently sounds exactly like he did twenty-five years ago.  I am by no means a PSB expert, and I don’t know how much house influenced their output in the 90s, but it’s weird to me to hear a pretty standard Pet Shop Boys song with pretty standard house piano grafted onto it.  I sort of like this, but it’s one of those things where two great tastes don’t necessarily taste all that good together.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, so after the triumph of Electric, Neil and Chris stuck with Stuart Price to helm their forthcoming Super; based on its first single, that sounds like it was a wise move. This is an ebullient record with a dash of “Being Boring”-esque looking back (in this case to the early ’90s), also reminiscent of Electronic’s “Disappointed“; (which is not only from the time period referenced, but had lead vocals from Mr. Tennant as well). PSB know that sometimes, the best way to do uplifting pop is to tinge it with sadness, and that comes through here. 30 years on they’re still killing it.
[8]

Daisy Le Merrer: You know how movies about how great movies are end up with great reviews and many awards? Think of The Artist a few years ago or Hail, Caesar in a few weeks. You may not remember the details those days, but as a pop music critic of course you’re going to overrate this song because like the best Tumblr meme it just is so relatable. And you’re a damn contrarian if you don’t.
[8]

Will Adams: There’s a split-second realization that happens when you discover that someone you’re speaking to shares the same depth of passion for music as you do. It’s a moment so beautiful it breaks my heart, and for years I’ve searched for it. I’ve yearned to have friends who don’t look at me sideways when I say I love Carly Rae Jepsen, who do more than nod their head when I rattle off my favorite pop songwriters, who can gush about the tiniest production detail in any song (here, it’s the panning piano chords in the verses). I’ve been so fortunate to be a part of the Jukebox community on here, Twitter and in brief in-person encounters to experience those moments in flashes. But it’s a feeling I’ve almost never felt in an intimate setting. “The Pop Kids” is a daydream for me, a story of a relationship that flourishes because of music. The details of the dream are all there, from unabashed musical immersion (“we quoted the best bits”) to plush contentment (“ooh, I like it here”) to the devastating emotional core (“I loved you”). That it’s so far remained a dream is probably the source of the childish envy that keeps my guard up with “The Pop Kids.” It’s too perfect, too unattainable, for me to fully love it. Or maybe it’s because there’s too much Sprechgesang.
[7]

Brad Shoup: It’s very possible I’m not reading this right, but by staging this in the early ’90s, PSB are crafting a bio counter to current acid narrative of the era. (I can’t imagine one would quote the best bits of “Ebeneezer Goode,” but then again…) The romance and loss are palpable, to be expected from a song that begins with “remember” and ends with “I loved you”. Part cutesy poptimist memoir, part erotic file access, it summons a sense of ending to which I cannot surrender. (There’s also a fair amount of “Policy of Truth” suffusing things.) But when Neil groans “oh/I like it here,” I can understand nostalgia.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Some were there, and some are missing the 1990s. It’s quite weird to hear the Pet Shop Boys so embodying other people’s youth from a time when they were already the Pet Shop Boys, but this is them all over: dancing to disco because they don’t like rock, well aware that life is much more simple when you’re young. “The Pop Kids” paints a picture of blinkered hedonism, with the melancholy only visible in hindsight. Whether the love was platonic or otherwise, it feels like it was never expressed so clearly at the time, and it still remains a little too subtle. Nonetheless, the song goes straight in the pantheon, of spoken Neil Tenant verses (wonderfully alliterative), and Neil Tennant expounding on moving to London to be among the beautiful people. It could easily be self-referential, even reverential, but instead it’s just one of the greatest bands of all time continuing on their happy-sad way.
[7]

Crystal Leww: “The Pop Kids” sounds like it could slot in anywhere in the Pet Shop Boys discography, but at a time when dance doesn’t quite know how it wants to move forward, songs like “The Pop Kids” manage to sound timeless. It’s propelled forward by a basic four on the floor and a British-tinged vocal and, as a result, grooves in a steady way. I heard Underworld on a Beats 1 show the other day; there’s no reason why “The Pop Kids” wouldn’t fit there or in the middle of a house set at Ultra next month.
[7]