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First of all, let me come right out and say this is the worst Pet Shop Boys album I have heard. It's downright bad, from any perspective I can come up with. There is very, very little redeeming about it. The Pet Shop Boys tried to incorporate some extremely disparate elements into the music, like a very strong disco influence and an influence that seems to have come from listening to way too much Mel Torme-like lounge lizard tunes. Since I have little interest in either genre, I found their inclusion to be distasteful in the extreme, although conceivably there is someone out there that likes it. I doubt it, though. After all, the PSB pretty much abandoned this approach for Very which was a good thing. The ironically titled "Being Boring" starts the album off. The boys claim that the single's performance was disappointing, but that fans complained when it wasn't included on the tour, and when they played it as an encore, it got the best reception of the night. I find this claim absolutely incredible. As in not believable, not as in great. The song is boring! Even without the disco sound to it, the vocals are insipid and uninspired, and beat is plodding. The Pet Shop Boys also apparently went in for really long song titles this year, starting off with "This Must Be the Place I've Waited Years to Leave." As is apparent on some of my other reviews, slower songs usually don't do it for me unless they are genuinely really, really good. This one has a lot of faults, including tired vocals, disco sounds and numerous other tiring characteristics. The same holds true for "To Face the Truth" except slow it down even more, replace disco influences with lounge crooner influences and please just hit me on the head with a hammer next time you play this. Another long title is the "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" which sums up my reaction to this album in general. This song is actually one of the high points on the album, although it's only an average song for the Pet Shop Boys in general. The clever and chic lyrics were always one of their strengths, and they help to overcome some minor weaknesses with this song. However, the album takes a downturn with "Only the Wind" which reminds me way too much of other songs on the album. "My October Symphony" has a grandiose title, and I remember feeling hope as I read it. However, the symphony sounds like it was performed by Gloria Gaynor, who isn't really a first class symphonic artist, as much as I admire her work otherwise. The anachronism of the style with the lyrics and some of the synth work is a real turn-off. Luckily, the album isn't a complete loss. There is one extremely excellent song here, "So Hard." Unfortunately, since it's the only excellent song, I recommend that you seek out the cd single instead of the album. That way you also get the wonderful b-side "It Must Be Obvious" which beats every other album track on Behavior. The album disappoints all the way to end with "Nervously," "The End of the World" and "Jealosy" which are all retreads of problems inherent with most of the rest of the album. The middle song of the bunch is at least faster and eschews the disco feel, although that only manages to raise it to the level of an average PSB track.
Besides the disco and crooner influences, the cd suffers from a feeling of tiredness, as if Neil didn't have any heart in the vocals, and the synthesizer work is mostly uninspired as well. I have to salute the Pet Shop Boys, actually, from recovering from this debacle with Very, which, as it turns out, is actually quite good.
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