behaviour

The Pet Shop Boys were never being boring when they faced the truth and changed the dedication from revolution to revelation with the melodic miserablism of this nervous nostalgia.  The synthpop duo had found continued success over three albums in as many years (Please in 1986,  Actually in 1987,  and  Introspective in 1988); but for their next project, they were looking to do something different. The Pet Shop Boys co-produced 'Behaviour' with Harold Faltermeyer at his "Red Deer" studio in Munich, Germany over ten weeks in the spring of 1990.    They chose Faltermeyer because of his previous work with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer.   The sessions featured  Neil Tennant on vocals and guitar  and  Chris Lowe on keyboards, programming, and vocoder;   with  Dominic Clarke on plastic tube,  J.J. Belle and Johnny Marr on guitar,   Angelo Badalamenti did the Orchestra arrangement and conduction;  Alexander Bălănescu did the String quartet arrangement for the The Balanescu Quartet;  and  Jay Henry provided additional vocals.     

Tennant:   "At the time, I believe we were thinking of bringing out an album of fab pop songs, like ten Kylie Minogue singles...We had the idea before we started that we were going to use analogue synthesisers, and we weren’t going to use samples, because even by the beginning of 1990 everything was mega-samples, and we wanted to make something much cleaner. We thought it would sound fuller and more original if all the sounds were programmed for it...At the end of 1989 Chris and I flew to Munich to meet him.  He has a positive museum of ancient synthesisers. And he had an engineer from America, Brian Reeves, who worked on a lot of Donna Summer records...We stayed in this little apartment hotel in the centre of Munich.  They were very ordinary rooms...I kept wanting to hire a suite in the best hotel in Munich, but Chris wanted to save the money...I used to like walking in the English garden.  I occasionally went to the opera. I like the beer; I liked the buildings...We were listening to Violator by Depeche Mode, which was a very good album and we were deeply jealous of it...When ['Behaviour'] came out people said they were amazed that the whole rave thing seemed to have passed us by.  We, of course, thought we had shamelessly jumped on the rave bandwagon.”

Lowe:  “The Germans then hadn’t heard of house music.  There was nowhere to go. Miserable times. I felt like I was missing out on so much that was happening in England—it was possibly the most exciting time in English culture ever including the Sixties, and we were in Munich. But Neil liked it...The thing is, we were ahead of it, because some of Behaviour is like deep house, and the naff old reviewers were still trapped in acid house. Whereas we had moved on.”

 'Behaviour' found its way to number fifty-one in the Netherlands, forty-seven in New Zealand, forty-five in the US,  thirty-four in Canada, twenty-seven in Australia, twenty-two in Austria, twelve in Switzerland, nine in Sweden, four in Germany, and number two in the UK.  









http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/









"So Hard" 
video directed by Eric Watson. 
b-sides:  "It Must Be Obvious",  Italian Mix of "Paninaro", and  The KLF versus Pet Shop Boys CD and 12" of the single.








"Being Boring"
video directed by Bruce Weber
b-side:  "We All Feel Better in the Dark"







"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?"
video directed by Liam Kan
double a-side in the UK with "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)". 
US b-sides:   Techno Funk mix of "I Want a Dog", the Marshall Jefferson remix of "Being Boring" and the Trevor Horn 7" mix of "It's Alright". 







"Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)"
video  directed by Liam Kan
 b-side, "Bet She's Not Your Girlfriend",






"Jealousy"
video directed by Eric Watson. 
b-side:  "Losing My Mind"









 'Behaviour' 
full album:




All the songs were written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe


"Being Boring" – 6:49
"This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave" – 5:30
"To Face the Truth" – 5:33
"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" – 3:56
"Only the Wind" – 4:20
"My October Symphony" – 5:18
"So Hard" – 3:58
"Nervously" – 4:06
"The End of the World" – 4:43
"Jealousy" – 4:48



bonus 
"Miserablism" – 4:11

please

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe took the world by storm with the synthesized techno pop of their literate and courteous debut album. Originally called West End after their favorite section of London, they changed their name to the Pet Shop Boys after some friends who owned a pet store. Tennant was a journalist for British pop music magazine 'Smash Hits' and Lowe studied architecture and played trombone in jazz band One Under the Eight. Their music used technology to express distance and desire with wit and sincerity and made lots of money.

Their first single 'West End Girls' topped the charts in the US, the UK, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Israel, New Zealand and Norway. The urban existential angst of the lyrics were inspired by Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' and T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland'. Helena Springs sings background vocals.

"Too many shadows, whispering voices

Faces on posters, too many choices

If, when, why, what?

How much have you got?

Have you got it, do you get it, if so, how often?

And which do you choose, a hard or soft option?

(How much do you need?)"

'Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)' satirized the materialism of the 80's. It made it to number three on the US pop chart.

"I've got the brains, you've got the looks

Let's make lots of money

You've got the brawn, I've got the brains

Let's make lots of money"

'Love Comes Quickly' peaked at number ten on the US charts and features Roxy Music's Andy Mackay on saxophone.

"Sooner or later, sooner or later, this happens to everyone

To everyone

You can fly away to the end of the world

But where does it get you?"

Borrowing its title from the film by Penelope Spheeris, 'Suburbia' addresses the violence that often springs from teenage boredom and poverty. It was a top five hit all over continental Europe. The music was inspired by Madonna's 'Into the Groove' and Chuck Mangione's 'Feels So Good'.

"Let's take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight in Suburbia

You can't hide, run with the dogs tonight in Suburbia

I only wanted something else to do but hang around"

'Tonight Is Forever' was not released as a single.

"We're out again another night

I never have enough

It will be like this forever

If we fall in love"

full album:






All the songs were written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe

"Two Divided by Zero"
"West End Girls"
"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
"Love Comes Quickly"
"Suburbia"
"Opportunities (Reprise)"
"Tonight Is Forever"
"Violence"
"I Want a Lover"
"Later Tonight"
"Why Don't We Live Together?"