After decades of missed connections, I finally got into the Pet Shop Boys this spring — and lucky for me, the legendary pop duo happened to be dropping a new album. I wrote: “Aptly, artfully, hilariously, they’ve named that new album ‘Nonetheless,’ continuing an unbroken tradition of one-word album titles that often serve as meta-commentary on the state of the group. ‘Nonetheless’ is an irrefutable pop album, mindful of its details, aware of its handsomeness, with [singer Neill] Tennant musing on obsolescence, coming of age, isolation, communion, devotion, loss and the sublime pleasures of pop itself — pop songs about pop songs from two minds who have earned their place on that Möbius loop.”
