“West End Girls” mood is emotional dislocation, a sense
of being a stranger somewhere you thought you knew; a city, a culture or your
own head. The music isn’t so dramatic; synthpop taken at walking pace, drum
machines and electro bassline low-key but insistent, synths rolling coldly out
across snatches of footfalls and street chatter. And a reminder of where we
are; a horn solo and gospel backing vocals, the trimmings of modern pop turned
into just more found city sound. And yes this can be every city in every nation
at every time; the flux of emergent consequences when you pack people together;
but it also specifically is London in the mid-80s, the years of Big Bang, wine
bars, braces, Canary Wharf, all that Thatcher boom iconography. 1986 was her
zenith: political opposition in civil war, unions routed, privatisation program
in full commercial swing, and now the old press and banking establishments in
retreat. The Pet Shop Boys would write a whole album that reflected and
dissected those times better than any other pop: “West End Girls”, written
years before, still catches something of their glassy hunger.
Ripped to MP3
West End Girls (The Shep Pettibone Mastermix) 12''
01 - West End Girls (The Shep Pettibone Mastermix)
02 - West End Dub
03 - A Man Could Get Arrested
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