Baffled: the Pet Shop Boys
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It’s A Sin, Channel 4’s drama about a group of gay friends in the Eighties as the spectre of Aids appears on the horizon, has been receiving rave reviews for its humanity, heart and humour. But the Pet Shop Boys song after which the hit show is named can lay claim to its own dramatic story, albeit one that is more bonkers than poignant.
It’s a Sin was the second UK number one single for the deadpan synth-pop duo, often dubbed the Gilbert and George of pop. The song topped the charts for three weeks in July 1987. A gloriously over-the-top track that featured a NASA countdown, claps of thunder, choral chanting and quotes from the Latin Mass, It’s a Sin marked the peak of what Pet Shop Boys’ singer Neil Tennant would memorably call the band’s “imperial phase”. It also had one of the most catchy synth hooks of the decade.
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Lynks: providing the mystery for 2021. Credit: @pappedbypercy
Before he was Lynks, Elliott Brett was trying to be capital-S Sad. His music from this period, released under his own name before he transformed into a self-described ‘masked drag monster’, has been variously recounted as indie-pop, dream-pop, and folk. The thought is somewhat baffling to anyone who’s seen him in his latest iteration – his new EP, ‘Smash Hits Vol. 2’ is far more Peaches than Passenger.
Of his past life, Lynks says the folk label is “the least correct”.
“It was me desperately,
desperately wanting to be James Blake. was just doing a very poor impression of him,” he laughs. In some ways, it’s the usual queer origin story. Try on something you think is right, realise it doesn’t fit, then shed it and flourish.
There’s a scene in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 coming-of-age film
Almost Famous that acutely sums up the complicated morality of life as a rock journalist. It’s 1973 and the bushy-tailed protagonist and aspiring writer, William, is about to embark on a weeks-long tour to cover a rock band he loves for
Rolling Stone. It’s his dream come true. He eagerly calls his mentor, a fictionalised version of the real-life editor of
Creem magazine, Lester Bangs, to tell him the good news and Bangs promptly pours cold water on his enthusiasm.
“You cannot make friends with the rock stars,” Bangs tells William. “You will get free records from the record company. They’re gonna buy you drinks, you’re gonna meet girls, they’re gonna try to fly you places for free, offer you drugs. I know it sounds great, but these people are not your friends. These are people who want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars. And they will ruin rock and roll and strangle eve