Music Arcades: Pet Shop Boys: Disco

The stand-out memory I have about this CD is of keeping it on the coffee table in the office, and one day one of my employees putting on his most patronising tone to scoff, "David, are you sure you want people to know that you listen to the Pet Shop Boys?" I might once have been similarly sniffy (but never with that snooty tone… surely?) — perhaps around 1986 when this album came out.

Actually I had no idea that the album was that old when I bought it; not until I looked it up on Wikipedia etc just now. To tell you the truth I didn't know that pop groups were doing remix albums that long ago: I thought remixes were still only on 12" singles. But I wasn't paying attention to pop in the mid-'80s. In fact the first thing I remember that made me think I should perhaps take the Boys more seriously was when your mum quoted the lyrics of Opportunities approvingly in your kitchen one evening.

Time passes, and the wise realise that there can never be any shame in good catchy pop music. It simply belongs to a dimension of reality that shame cannot touch. So I toughed out that patronising side-swipe indignantly.