1987.10. 'actually' - pet shop boys

so looking at the whole list for 1987, i'm already thinking that with 25 years of hindsight, i'd probably move some of the albums that came in 11-60 up into the top 10... as much as it pains me, because i've just never gotten the allure of the beastie boys, 'licensed to ill' probably was influential and transcendent enough to be top 10.  so certainly was 'document' -- and for me, 'darklands'...  as time has gone on, as much as i love listening to 'zen arcade', it's not the most accessible husker du album -- and maybe 'warehouse:  songs and stories' was... 


the list has some great forgotten LPs as well -- 'tallulah' by the go-betweens, 'ragin' full on' by firehose, and 'babble' by that petrol emotion... and there's some that maybe sounded that good then, but didn't stand up... 'babylon and on' wouldn't make my top 50 squeeze albums (if they had 50, and even though i love 'hourglass' as a song)... was schoolly d ever widely relevant (though, admittedly, rap isn't my genre and i'm sure someone will correct me by telling me he invented gangsta rap -- heard it before, still not buying it)... and i'm sure some got lost -- 'appetite for destruction' is nowhere to be found, which surprises me not one iota where the NME is concerned... 'kick' is missing too -- i guess the inclusion of the triffids and the go-betweens on the list was enough from australia... i'd also argue for 'the lion and the cobra' and 'introducing the hardline according to terence trent d'arby' -- but they're missing too... which shows us what we already knew -- sometimes, we need some distance in time to distill the essence...


but this post is really supposed to be about 'actually', the number 10 best album of 1987 according to the NME on, roughly, 1 january 1988... and there's a lot that's good here -- the stuff we all love about the pet shop boys... snarky lyrics -- check... wry observation -- check... but like so much from way back then, there's a lot of synthesizer filler... the album tracks sound like 1987 -- and some of the lyrics that would have been so cutting at the time just sound like little time capsules of a time i'm not sure ever really existed (perhaps only in neil tennant's mind?)... i think the biggest disservice i've done this album is own and repeatedly listen to 'discography' over the years -- the best songs on this album, even without the influence  of 'discography', are still 'what have i done to deserve this?', 'it's a sin' and 'rent'... 'shopping' is just kind of annoying now to me -- too overt... 'it couldn't happen here' is just WAY too overwrought for me not to hit the skip button -- though not so underwhelming that i'd walk to the record player and lift the arm to get the needle in the next groove... which, i suppose, is how the album still succeeds for me -- i owned this vinyl album in a day when the sounds coming off the vinyl through my tinny, tiny speakers seemed to defy all the logic of a 12/13 year old's expectations... in tampa, florida, i could close my eyes and picture a make believe london where beautiful people in patent leather red stilettos and black mini skirts strutted down the streets shopping, talking, smoking, drinking and doing all of those other things only adults could get to... and in that way, i can still close my eyes at some points in this album, and go back to a time way back there, where people DID where red patent leather stilettos and black mini skirts but also read 'count of monte cristo' for the first time... and started on their first french lessons... and started learning that subtle difference was as important as overt difference...   and, i suppose in a proustian kind of way, that's all you can ask from someone else's art... transportation can mean many things, after all...