Actually

Fun music, just what I needed.

I’ve grown to like Pet Shop Boys more every time I listen to them. This is some really fun and catchy synth-pop, but I think I prefer synthpop in the style of like New Order (or Kraftwerk if you can count that). 3.5 stars.

Sounds more dated than most other PSB albums, but even this one has its fair share of highlights. I just feel like most of their records have aged better. For a dance record, I expected it to make me move more.

Alright 2,5/5

Listen, I love pop music and I respect craftsmanship. There are certainly hooks, and the production is tight and careful (and lightly dated). The lead vocal performance is singular without being unlistenable; the slightness in his voice works with these songs. There are moments when this starts to sound like something bigger, like the instrumental outro of “Hit Music”. But the craft-to-guts ratio on this one is too lopsided for me to really get down to this. I just didn’t feel anything besides “oh, that’s kind of fun.” I was too impatient for this album to be over to be more generous with my rating.

Quietly, civilly, catchily subversive.

Ok

lowkey nice

First listen. I like portions of this album. I also understand that there are some political messages within this that may be lost in its distance from current day.

Not bad for the most part. Track 6 is terrible, the rest are okay good. Some catchy beats and melodies. It’s not particularly memorable though. “Behaviour” from 1990 is much better.

this is the nice side of the new wave, just a pleasantly nice experience.

A solid album from a very influential band - bit of a UK pop institution - but... it's not for me

When I think of the 80s music type that I despise, this checks all the boxes. So many albums I listen to of the 80s, I dread that they are going to sound cheesy and manufactured, matching that pop crap you hear on the radio. This is the dictionary definition of that music. 1/5

some songs ("Its a Sin") were good but overall not my jam

Who would've guessed, more new wave. At least these guys are one of the better groups in that scene, but I'm still getting tired of it

Fun enough. Love the dramar on it's a sin, which is also wild world and I will Survive somehow.

Clever, funny, musically a bit too long, but I love the dramatic chord changes in „It's a Sin“.

A stylish dance pop album, and good to listen to, but nothing really outstanding.

Big 2

Loved it.

First time listening to this album in full. Now this is some quality synth, I had fun listening to this album. And It's A Sin is a massive banger, come on 3/5

Great 80s pop duo.

If you rerecorded the whole album with real instruments instead of synths, it would sound so much better. They’re decent songwriters, but it all just sounds so silly.

I don’t know what I was expecting going in, but this had some relaxing moments, some groovy moments, and was all around a cool album! 4/5⭐️ 300/1089

I really like a few Pet Shop Boys songs, and Rent is one of them. Its sombre weariness nicely undercuts the apparent cynicism it voices. Unfortunately, I am much less keen on the Hi-NRG side they show in It's a Sin or Heart, and that is more prominent on this album as a whole

Doesn't hold up well, sounds too dated.

“One More Chance” has a sound that seems like the inspiration for Cartman’s voice. I’d say it was a sample, but these guys were there first.

"One more chance", went back and skipped. Listened to the second and third tracks again, not really appreciating the album yet. We get it, she pays your "Rent"! After some of that, I can see why mainstream radio format prefers songs around 3 minutes long. Seems like the band really enjoyed making music about a bad relationship, breakup, and regret. Some of these songs would be pretty good for a Roller rink's DJ or a secondary's dance mix for the late 80's. Liked "Hit Music" with its upbeat 80's synthpop vibe.

This is actually me on the cover. I subtracted about 600 pounds but it’s the before and after of me listening to any album on this list. My hair grows unkempt, and I become so fatigued, not much can keep me from sleep, except the horrors of each song I must endure. Yeah I’m with the “Pet Shop Boys,” can I see the “menu?” You guys still do Ferret kebabs? Perfect. Gerbil balls? Flamingo flambé? Hippo flank steaks? Giraffe ribeyes? Parakeet nuggets? Pangolin thermidor? Lobster eye boba tea? I’d like to make it a safari meal please. Please contact my exotic meat accountant. He keeps the purse strings tight. They don’t open for any old lion stew! 2 HIGHLIGHTS: Do NOT look behind that door!!

sympa et qlq classique

En vrai *GIF de chat qui vibe*

I feel like Pet Shop Boys are a bit overlooked when it comes to classic queer music. They weren’t necessarily as out or flamboyant as other queer icons but c’mon, they have songs about the aids crisis and It’s a Sin is an absolute bop!

Pfft

Total goofball 80s cheese, but I'm feeling generous today. I think bands like Pet Shop Boys or Devo work because they would be the first to say that their music is absolutely ridiculous. Real talk though. Why the fuck is there so much new wave on this list. Surely it cannot be that fucking important of a genre? Fave tracks: - One More Chance - What Have I Done To Deserve This? - Shopping - Hit Music - Heart

Pretty standard 80s pop. Nothing bad to say just decent

Just a collection of great songs, consistently enjoyable from start to finish.

It was all downhill from West End Girls for me

Enjoyed

Going very high 3. They make music that is vulnerable and earnest, and lean into a type of synth music that - albeit it hasn’t aged as well for their contemporaries - sounds entirely natural for them

Consistently good album.

Pet Shop Boys’ sound is completely their own, an unusual mixture of the masculine and the feminine and an unsung progenitor for the heightened sensibilities of hyperpop and bubblegum bass. They can totally get away with stuff that it would be inadvisable for most others to try. The lyrics to Shopping are so silly that it shouldn’t work - but they are perfect out of their mouths. There is a gentle theatricality running through Actually which is really fun and refreshing.

Pet Shop Boys are getting a high 3, absolutely loved a couple of these songs and the whole record could grow on me but synth pop not being my genre means the tracks that don't pop don't do it for me

It’s a sin carries

shopping was really annoying. The rest was good old harmless 80s fun

Brought back some great memories. I think I had the cassette version of this I bought from some dodgy bloke selling pirates out of a suitcase in a tube station on London. The Dusty song is fire.

Amazing

Depeche Mode is better.

14 Oct 2026 · 5/10 I'm super torn on this, I don't know what to think yet. I've saved some songs. Not sure if it's shit or good...

At the end of the day I’m George Michael pilled but he doesn’t have the humor these guys have. I love you, you pay my rent is so layered and each layer is funny

Ett sound som jag verkligen ogillar. Så oseriöst. Helt omöjligt att slappna av å njuta. Töntigt och barnsligt.

I'm not one usually for Synth-pop, but I found this one to be a pleasant enough listen!

Really good. I used to have a stereotype of Pet Shop Boys as tinny synthpop and emotionless delivery, but there's huge emotion and humour in there. And I'm always going to love an anti-Thatcher album.

Very much of it's era and very much PSB iconic sound. Overall I thought it hit the button as a good listen but I prefer the later Introspective album

Decent

I fucks with this heavy, actually. Made me groove at work, actually. I liked pretty much everything I was hearing here, and will need to re-listen because some of this is definitely getting added to the rotation. ACTUALLY, there was one song I didn't care for ('Heart').

More like Pet SHOPPING Boys am I right??? They sure did stick it to ol Maggie Thatcher with this one. Then again she is famously extremely fucking dead getting pissed on nonstop while these boys are very alive and delighting millions, so maybe they won in the end. I love synth pop, I love bombastic 80s cheese, what a delight. Second act montage needle drop in my biopic: "I Want to Wake Up"

This music makes me think it would be really fun to torture them like a child's hampster I guess that's why they're called pet shop boys!!! Really liked this one and the noises. Likelihood that they lezzed out IMO: 4/5 they have incredible chemistry I like it

i think it's a sin is one of the best songs of all time tbh. lots of fun bangers. everything was so gay in the 80s wish i could've been there i miss rips goth night who wanna go next Thursday

It’s clear that The Pet Shop Boys just aren’t my thing. The best indicator was what autoplayed afterward. That’s about as far from my algorithm as possible. This album was a little better than the last one, but I can’t give it a high rating. Sorry synth pop fans.

I don't think I knew any Pet Shop Boys apart from West End Girls before this. I kind of liked it! Cheesy synth pop but fun and quite interesting. Probably just a 4 for me.

Great

Electro pop that is thoughtful and timeless.

Jeg har litt blandede følelser for Pet Shop Boys. De kommer ut net positive, men det er noe som stopper meg fra å elske dem uten reservasjoner. Først og fremst, gutta kan faen meg skrive gode pop-låter. Oppbyggingen av åpningslåta One More Chance er et godt exempel på dette. Det er pop tvers igjennom, men virkemidlene og progressjonen er utrolig varierte. De har også skrevet tidløse, era-definerende mesterverk. Fra denne skiva er det It's a Sin som er den åpenbare man må trekke frem. På toppen av dette, skriver de texter som er morsomme, politiske, ofte litt ironiske. Pet Shop Boys er hele pakka. Men det er ofte en mykhet tilstede som jeg ikke helt klarer å forsone meg med. Eller et dårlig innfall som tar musikken fra å være ironisk kul til å bli litt uironisk cheesy. Vanskelig å nøyaktig sette fingeren på.

Ikke vært så mottakelig for PSB tidligere, men følte det løsna litt nå. Actually ganske fett

Got hyped because I loved please but this got real sleepy for me after not too long. Great band, there’s some great songwriting, the synths swell so good, but this album had me feelin real sleepy towards the second half. Still undeniably incredible work.

Talk about EIGHTIES! It's dance pop and I liked the arrangements but WOW some of the songs have not aged well. Specifically It's a Sin was a Sin to listen to. I love the eighties but I did not love this. It's fun and made me dance around at my desk though, so not all is lost.

Meh. I like New Order a lot better

Hi my name is Sam. I'm a straight white male, and I LOVE THE PET SHOP BOYS.

Synth pop, rather boring.

Bops every now and then.

I'm pretty sure this is just English Kraftwerk with more technology. To quote two famous critics, Christgau said "pure commodity, and proud of it," while Stephen Thomas Erlewine's retrospective says this is where "the Pet Shop Boys perfected their melodic, detached dance-pop." 'Shopping' is a perfect representation of this album: it's music made by robots to buy things to. 'Rent' is the same thing, but grimmer: "I love you / you pay my rent." Is that meant to be as depressing as it feels? Probably. But satire has been dead since the time of the Greeks and I don't know if I'm giving them a pass on a full album of facetious praise of consumerism whilst the album is a carefully-planned consumerist rocket. It's somehow both genius and entirely empty, which is maybe the perfect 80's album. Jack Welch probably loves this. There are also instances of blatant rip-off in here: 'It's A Sin' entirely lifts the opening from 'Wild World' by Yusuf/Cat Stevens. As somebody who tends to despise both deliberately-made commodity music and detached pop, this really ain't it for me. It's kind of important, though -- those things are rife through pop music for a long while after. Maybe that comes from here. If that's the case, it makes it important for the same reason as Kid Rock's 1998 record, Rebel Without A Cause -- it's a microcosm of something from its time. I might despise that thing, but it's a useful one-stop-shop for your historical context. 2/5: detached commodity pop is just another way of saying "value for shareholders, not listeners" -- which makes this the epitome of music from the 1980's. If it were released today, you'd assume it was built from the ground up by an AI owned wholly by Parlophone.

Second of three Pet Shop Boys album in this experience and I think I like this one more than the first one I got. Its delightfully 80s and delightfully upbeat. A little cheesy here and there (see Shopping) and it does get a bit one note as it goes on, but I could have done a lot worse for a Tuesday (especially after getting a 5/5 album the day before) 3.5 rounded down to a 3/5

Is it Brit pop month? Why does this keep happening. Not a fan.

3/5

Was very British 80s. Some songs were pretty good

Not a fan but there are some popular hits

dancing baby.gif

Somebody loves this but not me. This just sounds like a Depeche Mode derivative.

Ca va pas trop mal mais pas ma came mais sympa

The Good: Pet Shop Boys The Bad: Pet Shop Boys The Ugly: Actually liking it... I think I am starting to suffer from new albums a day fatigue... this is album 811, however, I've had 818 presented to me, yet only rated 805... There is nothing bad about PSB, yet, there also isn't much grand about them either. They are what they are, a good example of '80s pop, of how you don't need to go over the top et al. The songs on the album, mostly, are easy to listen to... yet, if I rate this 4* then I will have to listen to it again... and I don't know if I am ready for this at this moment in time... So, they deserve 4*, but I am giving them 3*... due to fatigue...

Alright ye know. Just dragged a bit

Very of its time, decent enough. Like the Bembo

Fair play but whatever

Nothing special

It’s alright I guess. 2.5

With the exception of the catchy tune “It’s a Sin” this is lame. There was a lot to like on “Please,” which I think preceded this album, but this falls short. Understand these guys were pioneers of electronic synth music, but this record ain’t for me.

i really believe that this was too repetitive... even for an electronic album. i struggled in the back half, where every new songs i literally thought to myself "huh, this sounds familiar". its fine, and probably this is an album that works better in small doses.

Kinda middle of the road on this one. I like the synth-pop sounds, but there just aren’t many memorable songs that I’d want to come back to. Worth a listen, not a second.

So... many... UK electronic artist on this list. I hope you like their one sound because that's all you get. It's not bad, but gets old quick.

Catchy synth pop. Some of it is a bit too polished for me but nice overall.

Another crappy pet shop boys album. The lyrics are just terrible. Shopping? Paying my rent? Pretty garbage

"I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your parents are gonna love it"

Album #279 Pet Shop Boys: Actually Pet Shop Boys are one of my pillars of synthpop, and as a result of that, one of my favourite bands of all time. Their first five albums are brilliant, and Actually is no exception (though truthfully it may be my least favourite of the bunch). However, Actually is probably the album most representative of Pet Shop Boys' sound; it expands on the traditional synthpop style of the debut, while also starting to delve into the more dancier and sophisticated sound of their later albums. The hits all hit, and the deep cuts are also great; there is probably only one or two songs here that I wouldn’t classify on the level of the rest, which is a testament to how consistent the band was during their early run. I’m glad to receive another album from them since I do think they are quite underappreciated today and have been forgotten to some extent over time, though I am surprised that I haven’t even received any of what I consider to be their three best albums. Best Songs: It’s a Sin, Rent, What Have I Done to Deserve This? Worst Song: Shopping Score out of 10: 8

7/10

solid 3.5

A mix of good and not good songs that would have been quite fitting for the 80's Euro discothèque scene.

This is the phase of their career that they coined the term "imperial phase" to describe, and "What Have I Done to Deserve This" is my favorite song of theirs by a lot, but this probably only ends up being my third or fourth favorite album of theirs? When it was the only album of theirs that I'd heard, I didn't think I'd like them all that much, though I've come around to it a little bit lately actually! It's a good synthpop album, but I don't think it's quite the classic its reputation would say.

Enjoyed this one!!!

Well gay but actually better than I expected

The three big singles - What Have I Done?/Sin/Heart - are terrific and elevate the rest of the album, some of which are a bit of a slog.