Hotspot - Pet Shop Boys: Review
are a legendary British dance music duo who have been pumping out hits with semi-regularity since the 80's. The pair have held onto their strongly 80's inspired brand of synth heavy dance music over the years and after a few singles Hotspot seems like it will be no different.
Review By Lavender:
Pet Shop Boys have a special place in my heart that stems from their initial run of records. The four albums they dropped from their debut 1986's Please up to 1990 Behaviour is more than enough to justify their legend status, but they continue to drop records I enjoy here and there. Their 2012 record Elysium surprised me with how fresh and catchy it was but since then I haven't truly been impressed with the bands last two albums. I was hoping coming off of the decent Super in 2016 the band would work their way into some great tunes, but Hotspot sees them with less inspiration than ever before.
The record isn't all bad and there are some places for positivity. The opening track Will-o-the-wisp is definitely my favorite of the bunch as it calls back to the bands heyday with a smooth synth led instrumental and some crisp vocal layering to at least get the record off to a decent start. You Are The One is the next track and one of the only love songs on the record that manages to sound real and have any sense of sentimentality to it. The track doesn't really go anywhere but it does have some enjoyable elements to it. I Don't Wanna has one of the most interesting techno beats on the record that grabbed my attention from the very start of the tune. I thought the refrain was a little bit drab at first listen but it definitely got better and better and became one of my highlights on the record. Only The Dark may be the compositional highlight of the record as it features some really solid songwriting that keeps me on the edge of my seat for the whole track, it has an excellent vocal performance as well and is one of the most complete tracks of the bunch.
The singles leading up to this record were absolutely dreadful for the most part. Starting with Dreamland which features Years & Years who I've never been head over heels for anyway. The song has absolutely nothing to its verses and bides its time waiting for the big dramatic hook to come around, only for that hook to fall really flat. The next single was Burning The Heather a painfully slow track that tests my patience from start to finish, I can't find any way to rationalize why this was released as a single. The final single was probably the worst of the bunch, Monkey Business which somehow turns their almost invincible brand of synth pop corny, somehow.
The loose handful of songs on the record suffer from these problems and then invent some more problems of their own. Happy People is a track so summery it is dreadful and there is almost no depth to it whatsoever. Hoping For A Miracle is an incredibly vapid track with a ham-fisted lead key riff and a bunch of totally meaningless lyrics. The closing track Wedding In Berlin is one I actually want to like its got a cool beat and interpolates wedding bells in a cool way but the derivative lyrics and lifeless vocal performance suck all the life out of the song.
HotSpot is not a highlight of a long and great discography, but that doesn't mean it is completely without worth. The genius of Pet Shop Boys is here on a handful of tracks but for the most part the band is sounding more dated than ever before, a feat I didn't think was possible with a sound as infectious and universal as theirs. 3.5/10
