Song #596: "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys

Date: May 10, 1986
Weeks: 1

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Here is a song that really puts synthesizers to their test. I've complained about songs from the late 70s and 80s using synthesizers as a cheap alternative to real instruments, and the songs sound cheap because of them. Songs in the late 90s and 2000s seem to have figured out that synthesizers are best used boldly, to create unique sounds that natural instruments just can't make. This song seems determined to take the good synthesizer and the bad synthesizer and mix them together in the same song.

I like a lot of what's happening in this song. The fake-string synthesizer track that leads off the song works pretty well. It creates a sort of surreal environment for the rest of the song to operate in. It's sort of like listening to a string section through an aural fog. Since the song is about London, that feels appropriate. The bass line is also pretty good. It's not kidding around about being a synthesizer, and that works to the song's benefit. I think the bass would be better if it sustained more notes, but it's okay as it is. Unfortunately, somewhere around the bridge, some odd choices get made. The synthesized chorus is never a good idea, but its gets put front and center for a bit here, and the song suffers for it. There's also a muted trumpet sound around the bridge that is just terrible. Maybe it's supposed to sound like car horns honking in traffic, but it's too good an imitation, and not musical at all.

There's also a terrible "dit-dit-dit" breaking news sound that follows every iteration of the verse that began to grate my nerves. Yes, the song probably needs some sound there, but I don't think they picked the right one. The drums also sounds very fake, and there is almost never a time when artificial drums are the right answer. The best you can hope for with a drum kit is that it'll go undetected.

Overall, there's not a lot of variety of sound in this song, either. It doesn't change very much from chorus to verse, and at the end it just sort of fades away, rather than feeling like it reached anything like a conclusion

I think I need a little metaphor help to decipher the lyrics. Now, I know that London's West End is upscale and ritzy and the East End is lower-class. So at first glance, with lines like "East End boys and West End girls," it seems the song is lyrically trying to copy Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." But while that song seems to be about love despite social class difference, this song doesn't seem to be about that at all. Is it about casual hookups? If so, what's that first verse about? "Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables in a a restaurant in a west end town." The second verse makes vague allusion to someone selling something "How much have you got?" But is it sex? Drugs?

My best guess, based on reading the lyrics several times, is that maybe it's about the low-class elements that hide in an upper-class town. Drugs, prostitution, robbery, and so on, that lurk underneath the fancy veneer of a high-class neighborhood.

My verdict: Don't like it. There's some good stuff going on here, but the overall sound hasn't aged well and sounds cheap.