6. “Go West” – Pet Shop Boys: An Artist A Week/A Song A Day – A History of Alternative Music

6. “Go West” – Pet Shop Boys

(From the album Very)

1992

Pet Shop Boys took some much needed time off following the release of Behaviour and its supporting world tour. During that time the duo wrote and produced for two of their idols, Dusty Springfield and Liza Minelli, before the duo also worked with Electronic, the new side-project supergroup consisting of New Order’s Bernard Sumner and band-friend Johnny Marr, once of The Smiths. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe contributed to two of the Electronic album’s songs, the lead single “Getting Away With It” and another song “The Patience Of A Saint”. Tennant also provided lead vocals for Electronic’s non-album hit “Disappointed” which was included on the Cool World soundtrack. The Pet Shop Boys, that seemingly ultimate 80’s act in both sound and worldview, then showed they could still thrive in the 90’s with the release of their new album Very in 1993. Very found success in both the UK and the US with the lead single “Can You Forgive Her?”, which featured a pulsing beat, harsh and icy synth stabs, and a (for the time) technologically cutting-edge music video. The song went to #7 in the UK and to #10 on the US alt rock chart and #1 on the US dance chart. Those are pretty strong results for a synthpop band in the wake of grunge rock and at the dawn of Britpop. Pet Shop Boys followed up the success of “Can You Forgive Her?” with an even more successful single. Continuing their now established pattern of adapting covers into their own sound and making them hits again (they already had hits with “Always On My Mind”, “Where The Streets Have No Name” and “It’s Alright”) the Pet Shop Boys updated the Village People disco classic “Go West” into a club hit and gay anthem that crossed over to be a sizable mainstream hit. Pet Shop Boys’ “Go West” takes the melody and beat of the original disco classic and adds to it a both sense of triumph and a world-weary nostalgia that adds depth to the song without robbing it of its club-thumping fun. “Go West” went to #2 in the UK and hit #1 on the US dance charts. These two successful singles helped to carry Very to #1 on the British album chart, making it the only Pet Shop Boys album to hit #1 in their home country. “Go West” also earned another interesting historical footnote when it became the first song played on MTV Russia. With the recent collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism, “Go West” was used to encourage the Russian people to embrace the western ideas of freedom and capitalism. The video for the song also plays into the themes of rejecting communism and embracing freedom and other western ideals. Even though Very was quite successful, the Pet Shop Boys took their time following it up. They did buy time by releasing the remix album Disco 2 and the B-sides compilation Alternative, before releasing the proper follow-up Bilingual in 1996. Bilingual took the basic blueprint of Very and grafted more Latin musical influences and bilingual (Spanish and Portuguese) language parts on several songs.

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