Pet Shop Boys – Behaviour

In my top 10 albums of all time. Utter classic. Such high quality lyrics, arrangements and beautiful songs.

What a fantastic album!!!! Same year as DM Violator was released, a great year for electronic pop music.

Офигенный альбом, который я услышал весной 1991 года.Потом его слушал всё лето и осень. Была просто как фоновая музыка!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, yes, and in English
Awesome album that I heard in the spring of 1991.Then I listened to him all summer and autumn. It was just like background music!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost a decade into their career as the pre-eminent post-disco ironists and cultural commentators, the Pet Shop Boys were at a crossroads. As reflected by their recent chart performance, the duo had already made the transition from synth-pop trailblazers to dance-pop veterans and were now faced with a choice: broaden their horizons even further and widen their audience, or simply do more of the same in order to (hopefully) maintain their success. Still fettered by commercial concerns and a desire for mainstream credibility, they opted for a compromise.

Usually, any particularly risky, wholly uncommercial but characteristic PSB material was relegated to the flipside of one of their less carefully produced sure-fire hit singles or outside collaborative projects with pop divas Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli. An effective way of putting some of their unrealized ideas, demos and throwaways to good use, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe's work rate and creativity was advancing during this period, with artistic and stylistic progression now being the top priority of the PSB hit-making machine. Inspired by Depeche Mode's live success and incorporation of bombastic, crowd-pleasing goth rock elements in their electronic framework, Tennant and Lowe went down a similar route, swapping the distasteful ideas and tongue-in-cheek style for anthemic, semi-orchestral musical-sounding pop warranting and befitting of the large venues and elaborate staging of their first tour.

A conscious effort to elevate the emotional manner of their lyrics and move away from "crass, canny and clubby" territory, "Behaviour" contradicted the Latin-flavoured, house-heavy "Introspective" in that its overall tone was more lush and sparse than exuberant and energetic. Not only did Neil Tennant sound more reflective and conventional in his vocal delivery, he was singing instead of speaking, which lent itself very well indeed to the more intimate, personal songs on the album. Until now, PSB's supremely danceable, disco-backed hits undeniably detracted from their ability to get their audience feeling a little blue, previously only signified by the melancholic quality to some of their less frothy, opera-hall-sized productions. After so many years of being tolerated rather than appreciated, the duo finally caught the attention of the music press by comprehensively demonstrating a serious and restrained approach to popcraft and electronic music, and although the album's more subdued though no less stirring and melodic singles fell short of what was expected of them commercially, their newfound musical sophistication was positively received by critics and fans alike.

Taken for granted as songwriters due to the finite, irresistible yet unvarying production techniques and frivolous, underground nature of their chosen medium, PSB's knack for well-crafted pop was never more incontrovertible than on "Behaviour", in which the case for their defence was made to great effect via their most coherent, densely arranged and slickest collection of compositions.

RATING: 4.5/5

Amazing sound. Nice dynamics. Totally recommended. A+++. Sounds better than the 2018 reissue IMHO

outstanding album, the best in the P S B discography in my personal opinion! Sounds fresh even after all these years

I won a copy of this album on Ebay way back in early 2013, matrix ID as above and a perfectly preserved pressing except the white labels are both blank so one never knows if its side A or B. Terrific sounding album though and one of their best.

Could the signal path for this LP be AAA? From the sleevenotes with the 2001 reissue, it would seem it was recorded to tape, and we know a lot of analogue synths were utilised, but I've got no idea what kind of desk Harold Faltermeyer used and whether the mixes were simply bounced to tape or actually originated there. If it's AAA, I think it'd be the only fully analogue PSB - though the Please CD is labelled ADD, the note on the back of the LP states rather confusingly that "Please is a digital recording"! Actually and Introspective are, I think, both digital as well - Actually at least is DDD if the credits are to be believed.

Although it would be difficult to show-the inside of the outer LP cover is the same red as the inner sleeve and also textured in the same way.