July 17, 1999

Pet Shop Boys : I don't know what you want but I can't give it anymore

Men in their 40s, making pop music, dressing like fools. It gladdens the heart.

While the country at large has been overexciting itself recently with the whole pornography of the royal weddings, rational beings know one true source of goodwill and bunting: the release of a new Pet Shop Boys single. Undoubtedly, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe occupy the prime lot between The Queen Mother and Morecambe & Wise in the Sentimental Journey Theme Park, but even as an institution, they've always been the kind that operates a strict straight-jacket policy, rather than the kind that's run by the National Trust. You only need look at their new image - long skirts, wild wigs, Weimaraners, tweed jackets, somewhere between Mozart and a county spinster - to remember how treasurable this band are. Men in their 40s, making pop music, dressing like fools. It gladdens the heart.

Starting like 'West End Girls' gone west, this epicly titled new single is a peppery account of infidelity and betrayal, all muted peaks and sequenced depression. "You're breaking my heart", sighs Tennant over the surge of strings, the essence of loneliness in a club corridor, and if it sounds a little too glossy, like it should play out the next Tom Cruise blockbuster, it's still a sad and passionate thing. An enduring love.

VICTORIA SEGAL