Pet Shop Boys 'Very' At 15: How Can I Even Try To Explain?

Today marks the first day of autumn. And it was this week in 1993—15 years ago—when the Pet Shop Boys' album Very was released. In so many ways, that fall was a new beginning for me, and Very soundtracked my life then and still resonates with who I am today.

This post isn't going to be an album review or retrospective. Music is so subjective, and who's to say that what I like you'll like. All I can convey is who I was in September 1993, as a 19-year-old college sophomore who wandered into National Record Mart and bought Very on cassette.

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At that time, I was attending Butler County Community College in Pennsylvania, and applying to universities, anxious to get away to one of them the following school year. I was at the mall one week night, reading Entertainment Weekly at B. Dalton Books, and caught a review of Very, unaware that Pet Shop Boys had anything new out. I hurried down to NRM and bought it right away.

The place I most wanted to transfer to was Point Park College, a liberal arts school in downtown Pittsburgh with a journalism program I hoped to get into. I toured the "campus"—two high-rise buildings with a connecting pedestrian bridge that stretched over the city street below–that October, and eventually got accepted. But in the end, the school proved to be more expensive than what my student loans would cover.

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While driving around my suburban hometown in my 1987 Dodge Shadow one night with my friend Becky in fall 1993, she started laughing when "Liberation," the third track (and fourth single) on Very came on, because of the lyrics, "The night, the stars / A light shone through the door."

I'd written an off-color poem months prior, and had given it to her. It contained the line, "The lights, the disco ball / You're hot! Oh, wait...you're a man!" Somewhere, she heard a corrolation between the two.

At that point I was far from openly entertaining any gay notions about myself...except in trashy, shock-value poetry, apparently. Twelve years later, that brand of humor would come into play in a new medium.

That October, Becky and I went on a field trip with our Geography professor to see famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house. I listened to Very on my headphones during the bus ride.

We also stopped off in Johnstown, which is where this photo was taken:

A week later, both of us went to see A Nightmare Before Christmas.

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Two great clips: Pet Shop Boys (in Beatles wigs) opening in Rio with "Tonight Is Forever/I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" in December 1994 on the "DiscoVERY" tour, and also seguing into Culture Beat's "Mr. Vain" during "One In A Million," from the same gig.

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In 1994, at Indiana University Of Pennsylvania—where I finally transferred to and got my Bachelor's degree from in 1997—everyone on my dorm room floor had Very. It was one of those essential CDs, like ABBA Gold, the first Weezer album and R.E.M. Monster, that most students owned.

It wasn't long before I met a guy and finally acted on the previously-mentioned impulses that lay buried during my time in my hometown. Suddenly I kind of understood Very from a completely different angle.

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It's a funny thing that happens when you finish college; you enter the real world and find that what you'd been working so hard to get to is...lonely. And tough. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1999, I listened to Very a lot. It reminded me of good times. Innocent ones that had long gone by.

Every fall I dig that CD out. In fact, I probably play it more than any album still. It's my "if you were stranded on a desert island" disc.

Very is of its time, but has aged surprisingly well. "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing" is just spectacular pop, though I much prefer the album version over the single mix that was done. "One And One Make Five" and "The Theatre" are amazing album tracks that could have been singles.

"Young Offender" makes my heart break to this day, and is probably my favorite Pet Shop Boys song of all time. I like to think that I was a young offender when Very came out.

How graceful your movement
How bitter your scorn
I've been a teenager since before you were born
And I'm younger than some
I've only begun

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A few facts about Very:

1. It's the Pet Shop Boys' fifth studio album.

2. In the U.K., it's the duo's only one to hit #1.

3. It reached #20 in the U.S., and has been certified gold (over 500,000 sold).

4. Neil Tennant commenting on "Go West" in the liner notes of the 2001 remastered CD: "[Chris Lowe] played [the original Village People version] to me and I said, 'This is ghastly.' I thought it was ghastly beyond belief. Awful. Anyway, Chris just carried on regardless."

5. Chris Lowe on he and Neil's image for the album promotion: "Everyone was being grungy. Everyone was just dressing in baggy jeans and T-shirt and sweatshirt, that Nirvana thing, looking ordinary. We wanted to be unique, outside of it."

6. Neil on "A Different Point Of View": "This song would have been great done by Take That... Chris never liked this song. Chris played the tune on orchestra hits, just to annoy me. And even more annoyingly, I really liked it."

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I stopped at the newsstand today to grab a copy of British mag Pop—the "'80s excess issue," with a nice six-page interview with the Pet Shop Boys. I read it at Starbucks, which is when I took the top photo.

This piece is a continuation of "These Are The Days You'll Remember."