Pet Shop Boys The Most Incredible Things

The Pet Shop Boys’ newest release The Most Incredible Thing is most definitely an interesting thing. The Pet Shop Boy’s, consisting of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowes, collaborated with choreographer Javier De Frutos and the British dance company Sadler’s Wells to produce a ballet based on the Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Most Incredible Thing.” It is hard to write a review of just the music on this release and honestly, it was difficult to listen to the whole thing all the way through without losing interest. The titles of the 21 tracks hint at subject matter but there are almost not vocal lines to help guide the listener along the plot. As a pop music endeavor, this release falls short but as a soundtrack or music setting for a ballet, I could see this being very successful.

While I didn’t find this music engaging from a pop music sensibility, there is a lot to be said about the musical depth of this electro dance group. Through out the entire piece, there is a plethora of good, solid hooks that good DJs all over should sample from. The instrumentation and orchestration is excellent and provides very engaging textures. They mix orchestral arranging with synths, electro bass and trance-ish dance beats.  This mixing of high and low music is engaging but

Mixing low and high art is very interesting and has recently in style. For example, recently composer Mark-Anthony Turnage debuted an opera based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith and the Swedish rock, The Knife, wrote an opera based on Darwin’s Evolution of Species.   As with The Knife’s opera (“Tomorrow, in a year”), the  music provides an excellent foundation on which to produce extremely creative dance and storytelling platform but unlike traditional ballet or opera, the music does not stand on it’s own.