| Details | | Distributor: | EMI Music Distribution | | Recording Type: | Mixed | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | DDD |
Album Notes
This Limited Edition of VERY is packaged in a custom slipcase with a 36-page booklet, and contains a bonus disc of rare tracks.
Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe (vocals, programming).
Additional personnel includes: Anne Dudley (conductor); Johnny Marr, J.J. Belle (guitar); Gerard Prescencer (trumpet); Frank Ricotti (vibraphone, percussion); Pete Gleadall (programming); Sylvia Mason-James, Dainton Connell, Carol Kenyon, Katie Kissoon, Tessa Niles (background vocals).
Producers include: Stephen Hague, Brothers in Rhythm, Pet Shop Boys.
Compilation producers: Pet Shop Boys, Chris Heath.
Engineers include: Bob Kraushaar, Pete Gleadall, Mike Bigwood.
Recorded at Sarm West, Angel Studios, London, England and The Power Station, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Chris Heath.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
BEHAVIOUR was the Pet Shop Boys' first truly mature album, but its follow-up, 1993's VERY, proved to be their masterpiece. On the surface, VERY is the duo's most carefree album, a modern dance-floor update of the kitchen-sink production and swelling melodies of a classic ABBA album. Just barely underneath, Neil Tennant's lyrics keep their layers of mordant wit, but drop the self-protective irony in favor of writing truthfully about the lives of gay men in the early '90s, regrouping in the face of AIDS.
To that end, the album starts with "Can You Forgive Her?," a drop-dead-gorgeous song directed to a closeted young man whose "girlfriend" wants to call off her part in the charade, and it wraps up with a completely heartfelt and unironic version of the Village People's "Go West" that views the unfettered hedonism of the original with a palpable sense of regret. In between, "Yesterday, When I Was Mad" and "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" are among the duo's finest singles.
Editorial Reviews
Included in Rolling Stone's Essential Recordings of the 90's.
Rolling Stone (05/13/1999)
4 Stars - Excellent - ...[Is] there a more perfect marriage of pop sensibilities than the Pet Shop Boys covering a Village People hit?...there's more to these songs [on VERY] than sly wit and catchy choruses...the depth makes VERY worth hearing again and again...
Rolling Stone (11/25/1993)
Highly Recommended - ...Nothing compares to the carnage of a cold fish [like the Pet Shop Boys] succumbing to emotional abandon; on VERY, the fridge door is swinging off its hinges...
Spin (11/01/1993)
Ranked #5 in the Village Voice's 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.
Village Voice (03/01/1994)
4 Stars - Excellent - ...VERY is the album that confirmed a group so tightly focused on its strengths to the exclusion of any meaningful experiment...
Q (11/01/1993)
Ranked #37 in Melody Maker's list of the `Albums Of The Year' for 1993 - ...VERY plumbed hitherto uncharted depths of pop savvy with clinical efficiency....
Melody Maker (01/01/1994)
...This is more like it...[VERY is] the purest, most intelligent and poppiest pop. [The Pet Shop Boys] write pop songs, play pop songs, are a godsend to those who love pop songs, from kids at school discos to middle-aged connoisseurs of a cracking tune...
Melody Maker (09/25/1993)
(9) - Excellent - ...[VERY] is brilliant from start to finish....Musically, things are `up' and the tunes are `soulful'....The Pet Shop Boys are simply one of the best bands the world has...
NME (09/25/1993)
Ranked #14 in New Musical Express' list of `The Top 50 LPs Of 1993' - ...a joy from end to end....
NME (12/25/1993)
...very understated musically, with happy and sad love songs dryly set to the same propulsive beat. It's also very deeply felt... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (10/08/1993)
...they've shown that songs of lasting substance can be created by knob twiddlers no less than string pickers...VERY is another good piece of enriched popcraft Pet Shop Boys....
Stereo Review (12/01/1993)
Ranked #91 in Q's 100 Greatest British Albums
Q (06/01/2000)
...very understated musically, with happy and sad love songs dryly set to the same propulsive beat. It's also very deeply felt... - Rating: A-
Entertainment Weekly (10/08/1993)
...This is more like it...[VERY is] the purest, most intelligent and poppiest pop. [The Pet Shop Boys] write pop songs, play pop songs, are a godsend to those who love pop songs, from kids at school discos to middle-aged connoisseurs of a cracking tune...
Melody Maker (09/25/1993)
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