The Good: Decent lyrics, Vocals are not terrible.
The Bad: Short, Tracks blend together, No hooks, Musically uninspired.
The Basics: A disappointing Pet Shop Boys album, Bilingual is pretty generic dance-pop music.
It took long enough in my exploration of the music of Pet Shop Boys, but here we are. With Bilingual, I have come across a Pet Shop Boys album where the music lacks hooks, the sense of originality that has made other Pet Shop Boys albums resonate above most dance-pop works. The only surprise on Bilingual is an unfortunate one; that the Pet Shop Boys created an album where the songs blend together like a sweaty night club experience with no real definition or zest.
In fact, after listening to Bilingual eight times now, I find myself with surprisingly little to write about the album. The album feels short, the songs are musically unimpressive, the vocals are too familiar for me to comment terribly positively about them and the lyrics are frequently obscured by the instrumental accompaniment. But far more damning than what is on the album is what is not present on Bilingual: there is nothing that stands out. None of the songs separate and scream "I'm the special track!" As a result, the album gels together as an auditory muck which is entirely indistinct and easily becomes background noise.
With a dozen tracks occupying 53:52, Bilingual is very much the work of the Pet Shop Boys. The duo - Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe - wrote all of the songs and Tennant provides all of the lead vocals. Lowe plays most of the synthesizers and programmed the drum machine, as well as providing the samples the songs utilize when they do that. The band is also credited as co-producers on the album, so this is very much the sound they intended to create, at least at the time.
That sound has more of a Latin influence, which seemed to poise it for its release prior to the Ricky Martin-driven Latin music fad. The beats are more syncopated and there is an increased emphasis on stringed instruments which are strummed more for percussion than for melody, so Bilingual has an initially different sound to it. Unfortunately, that difference becomes mundane as the album continues as all of the songs sound generally the same. In fact, the strings are more or less overwhelmed by "Before," where the percussion once again overtakes the sound of the songs as being the driving force of the music. On "Saturday Night Forever," the dance beats are so obvious, predictable and overdone by the Pet Shop Boys that the track could be lifted from Bilingual and put on virtually any other Pet Shop Boys album and no one would likely notice.
There is a little musical differentiation, but not all of it is good. "Metamorphosis" and "Single" are both more synthesizer-driven - as one might expect from the Pet Shop Boys - but they have simple tunes which are repeated a lot to create the songs. The result is that the repetition makes the songs mundane and as the album is replayed, the percussion blends into the next songs. Even "To Step Aside," which ought to be a great Pet Shop Boys anthem, falls flat largely because the orchestration in the song is more muted than many other Pet Shop Boys anthems and it cannot break out of the repetitive energy of the rest of the tracks. The result is that it, too, blends in.
My enjoyment of the works of the Pet Shop Boys has usually come from my being impressed by the vocals and lyrics the band is performing. However, on Bilingual, I don't have even that. It is not that Neil Tennant does anything vocally bad on the album, he just does not do anything terribly new. Instead, Tennant performs with his smooth baritenor vocals with the occasional falsetto line or riff and the listener feels like they have heard it before (because we have).
Lyrically, Bilingual is no great masterpiece of poetry. Opening with "Discoteca," Bilingual is unfortunately repetitive. Simple lines like "I've sometimes walked / And tried to talk / But how can I be heard / In such a world / When I am lost? / I'm doing what I do / To see me through" ("Discoteca") plague the opening song, as well as many of the tracks which follow. "Single" is annoyingly repetitive as well and between the two songs, the album gets off to a very rocky start.
Still, it is not all bad. Songs like "The Survivors" have an actual message and the song works to create a musical storysong. If Tennant could actually be heard singing "If life is worth living, it's got to be done / One might be forgiven for thinking it's a life on the run / Many roads will cross through many lives / But somehow you survive / Look around / Picture what's in store / Is this the final edit / Or is the subject now a bore" ("The Survivors") the song might resonate, but instead the instrumental accompaniment drowns out the vocals. What poetry is present on Bilingual tends to get sublimated to the instrumental accompaniment.
And what poetry there is is not necessarily even the best works of the Pet Shop Boys. "It Always Comes As A Surprise" has a great title, but predictable rhymes: "You may be right, it's too much too soon / To talk of love all night in your bedroom / I don't know why it always comes as a surprise / To find I'm here with you / You smile, and I am rubbing my eyes / At a dream come true / I won't play games or waste your time / But I won't feel ashamed to speak my mind / So just relax, don't question why / For calculated facts will not apply." Ultimately, Pet Shop Boys seems to be trying to make a less deep dance album with "Bilingual" and they unfortunately succeed. Fans of the band want more than random words strung together.
Ultimately, that is the death knell of Bilingual: it is a very typical dance-pop album and fans of the group want and deserve more than that. There are no terribly superlative tracks on this album as the whole experience blends unfortunately together.
For other Pet Shop Boys works, please check out my reviews of:
Disco
Actually
Behaviour
How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously? (single)
Discography: The Complete Singles
Was It Worth It? (single)
Very
Disco 2
Se A Vida E (single)
Nightlife
I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More (single)
New York City Boy (single)
Pop Art: The Hits
Disco 3
Fundamental
Disco 4
Yes
3/10
For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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