Bilingual (album)

Background and recording

Bilingual carries forward the dense instrumentation and layered backing vocals that Pet Shop Boys first explored on their 1993 album Very. True to its name, the record draws from global sounds. After touring South America in 1994, the duo found themselves inspired by Latin American rhythms and beats. They originally planned to give the entire album a Latin American feel, but that concept never fully came together.

Three tracks feature lyrics in two languages: "Discoteca" and "Single-Bilingual" mix English with Spanish, while "Se a vida é" blends English and Portuguese, the latter based on a song by Brazilian group Olodum. "It Always Comes as a Surprise" begins with a sample from Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto and includes percussion from a berimbau and cuícas. "To Step Aside" samples Spanish gypsy music, and "A Red Letter Day" features a Russian choir. Neil Tennant referred to four songs—"Metamorphosis", "Electricity", "Before", and "Saturday Night Forever"—as a "New York dance album" tucked inside the larger project.

Songwriting for the album began in August 1994, with "Discoteca" among the first tracks written at Unique Studios, the same place where "West End Girls" was originally recorded. During a trip to New York, the duo heard live samba drums at the Sound Factory Bar, an experience that later shaped their Discovery Tour. For the album, they brought in the Scottish women's drumming group SheBoom, who specialized in samba rhythms, along with samba percussionist Robin Jones.

Recording started in April 1995 and continued on and off until the following year. They worked at Sarm West and Bunk Junk & Genius in London, set up a temporary studio in a rented house outside Henley-on-Thames, and also used nearby Sarm Hook End. In June 1995, they traveled to New York to record the single "Before" at Axis and Bass Hit studios with Danny Tenaglia, who later came to the UK to produce "Saturday Night Forever". Producer Chris Porter worked on five tracks: "Se a vida é", "It Always Comes as a Surprise", "Up Against It", "The Survivors", and "To Step Aside".

Another track, "Metamorphosis", was produced by Paul Roberts and Andy Williams of K-Klass. In March 1996, Tennant went to Moscow to record the Russian choir for "A Red Letter Day" at the State House of Broadcasting and Sound Recording.

Release

Before Bilingual came out, Pet Shop Boys teamed up with David Bowie for "Hallo Spaceboy," which hit number 12 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1996. The album's first single, "Before," made the top 10 in April, followed by "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)" in August. Bilingual itself dropped on 2 September 1996 through Parlophone in the UK, and on 10 September via Atlantic Records in the US. The duo had ended their deal with EMI's American arm in late 1995 and moved to Atlantic.

Promotion

That label launched a fresh push to get them heard in the States, focusing on radio and club play. In May 1996, Atlantic sent import copies of "Before" to 300 clubs before the single's US release on 17 June, and its gay marketing division threw launch parties at gay nightclubs in cities where the band had done well before. Radio promotion targeted Top 40, alternative, and college stations. Atlantic treated Bilingual as one of its biggest releases for the last quarter of 1996, using an aggressive pricing strategy.

The label set up a Pet Shop Boys website on the World Wide Web, where at least five fan sites already existed. Neil Tennant signed copies of the album at a Tower Records event on New York's Upper West Side, drawing hundreds of fans. The marketing push aimed to get the duo more involved, since Billboard had described them as having "a reputation for being difficult, to the extent of barely helping to promote their releases." In the UK, promotion included ads in cinemas, on TV, in print, and on billboards around London.

BBC Radio 1 held a Pet Shop Boys Day, and BBC Two's The O-Zone aired a Pet Shop Boys special. Tennant gave interviews to Q magazine and The Sunday Times. Parlophone's campaign was built around the album itself, with little direct promotion from Tennant or Chris Lowe. As international marketing manager Carol Baxter put it, the band were already established enough that their active participation wasn't needed.

Critical reception

In a 3-star review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine cited Bilingual as "further proof that even if the Pet Shop Boys aren't gracing the top of the charts as frequently as they did during the late '80s, they are crafting albums that are more adventurous and successful than they did when they were one of the top singles acts in pop music". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian also gave 3 stars, elaborating: "You'd think that, after 11 years and six LPs, the Pet Shop Boys had taken their ironic-gay-disco formula as far as possible.

Bilingual seems to confirm this... But—and this is what made 20 of their songs top 40 hits—it never fails to be extravagantly melodic and intelligent. You almost like it against your will". Giving Bilingual a B+, Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly called it "a near-perfect album for converting discophobes to the pleasures of dance music".

Paul Verna of Billboard commented, "Another pleasant jolt of "Bilingual" is how tightly linked its rhythms are to current dance trends. It adds up to a fresher and far more commercially accessible album than the act has offered in years". J. D. Considine of Spin rated the album 8 out of 10, saying, "Bilingual breaks new ground on tunes like "Se a Vida é", in which the earthy pulse of the percussion beautifully offsets the mannered detachment of Neil Tennant's voice—a new way to play off his usual inside/outside emotional dynamic.

Only here, for the first time in eons, he sounds happy. Hopeful, even". Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork, who gave the album 5.9 out of 10, noted: "For the first four seconds of Bilingual, I was convinced it was more of the same synthetic, electroid waste that we're so accustomed to hearing from the Boys. And that's when the strings came in.

Of course, they're not real strings, but all the same, the chords played are not your standard danceable, major key chords. It's much darker than that. The drum loops begins its aggressive pounding, and you slowly begin to realize that something's changed with these guys".

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Bilingual. Pet Shop Boys are Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Additional musicians include Pete Gleadall on programming, SheBoom on drums and percussion, Robin Jones on additional percussion, and Davide Giovanni, Joseph De Jesus, Weston Foster, and Lino Rocha on additional vocals. Sylvia Mason-James provides vocals, Simon Cotsworth programming, Ritchie Birkett keyboards, and Trevor Henry/Ignorants scratching and additional keyboards.

Kevin Robinson, Bud Beadle, and Fayyaz Virji play brass. Mike Innes, Noel Langley, and Richard Sidell also play brass, while Andy Hamilton plays brass and saxophone. J.J. Belle plays guitar, Chris Cameron additional keyboards and string arrangement, Hugh Burns guitar, and Katie Kissoon additional vocals. The Choral Academy of Moscow provides choir, directed by Victor Popov, with coordination by Graeme Perkins and arrangement by Alyosha Zolotukhin.

Barbara Tucker, Karen Bernod, and Carole Sylvan contribute additional vocals. Johnny Marr plays guitar and additional vocals.

Greg Bone plays guitar, Andy Duncan drums and percussion, Danny Tenaglia and Louie "Balo" Guzman drum programming, Peter Daou keyboards, Phil Pagano programming, and Eddie Montilla additional keyboards. Technical personnel include Pet Shop Boys as producers, Bob Kraushaar engineering and mixing, Paul Roberts and Andy Williams production, Simon Cotsworth engineering, Chris Porter production and recording, Tatyana Vinnitskaya choir recording, Danny Tenaglia production, Dana Vlcek recording and mix engineering, Rob Rives engineering assistance, Rich Lowe engineering, Doug DeAngelis mix engineering, and Claire Tonkinson, Andrew Green, and Tom Elmhirst recording assistance. Artwork is by Mark Farrow Design, Pet Shop Boys, and Chris Heath photography.

Did You Know?

• "It Always Comes as a Surprise" contains a sample of "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)", performed by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto.
• "Metamorphosis" contains the lyric "somebody spoke and I went into a dream", which is taken from The Beatles' song "A Day in the Life".