Pet Shop Boys "Love, Etc."

“Love Etc.,” Pet Shop Boys: Split the Pet Shop Boys career into an early pop period and a club period. (And then maybe a musical theater period, although I’m entirely unfamiliar with this one?) From the club period I like the first three or four tracks of Very and lose interest after that. Fifteen years later this song feels like a throwback, and an unassuming one. The first four or five times through I thought, ‘okay, but why not just put on Discography?’ Fifty plus plays later I think “Love Etc.”’s a piece of pop pastry, dreamy electro-pop tempo, hooks galore, big-boy choruses, perfect for 2009. It’s Yes-We-Can pop jingoism (“I believe we can achieve the love that we need”) and still wryly sardonic (“you don’t have to be beautiful but it helps”). Their gayness has never (nor maybe their lousy videos either?) played well in the States but their pop craftiness rules as far as I’m concerned.