Actually

It just occurred to me, in the tradition of so many other great thoughts that occur at nearly 2am, that I’ve had Pet Shop Boy’s “Actually” album on my brain today. I was thinking about the lyrics to “Hit Music” and how it mentions “Tainted Love” and “Love Is Strange” which is the cross referencing you don’t often hear in most pop music. Then I got “I Want To Wake Up” stuck in my head, probably because of the whole new Morrissey album who was in The Smiths with Johnny Marr who works with PSB and “IWTWU” is his favorite PSB song. Oh, then I heard “What Have I Done To Deserve This?” on the radio while I was picking up dinner this evening, which is a duet with Dusty Springfield who’s 60’s hit “I Just Don’t Know To Do With Myself” was recently covered and released as a fantastic single by the White Stripes. So I checked my computer, and for whatever reason I hadn’t ripped “Actually” on to my computer and so I did it and I’m listening to it and writing about it, and it really is a great album. Also it has one of the best album covers of all time (which they claim wasn’t staged, it was just the result of a long photo shoot).