Pet Shop Boys
This is only a suggestion, but perhaps the best way to really promote this first full-length Pet Shop Boys release since 1987 is to put it in the section of stores where they sell those learn-while-sleeping cassettes.
Not because it's dull—half the time, anyway. It's just that all but one of the album's 10 songs are so slow and dreamy, the record seems uninvolving at first. An hour later, though, the good tunes stay in your brain-much as when you learn to say "Let us visit the pencil of my aunt" in Spanish hours after you nod off to a sleep-learning tape.
Take the first and best song. "Being Boring." The title is inspired by a Zelda Fitzgerald quip, and the song's heavily synthesized beat glides by like a cloud. The rest of the record also strives to underwhelm your ears, with mixed results. Tunes like "Only the Wind" and "Nervously" seem too ethereal for their own good.
The Boys, a/k/a Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, appear intent on making Behavior a statement to show that they can do more than dance music. The only truly danceable number is "So Hard." which zips along like the past PSB hits "Domino Dancing" or "Left to My Own Devices." This new restraint is fine, but one or two more driving tunes might have helped keep listeners awake so they wouldn't have to get into the music subconsciously. (EMI)
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