Time for a midweek dance party, people! Pull out that mirror ball and lava lamp you haven’t used since college and turn Pet Shop Boys’ new single “Axis” way up. It’s the cure for what ails ya! “Axis” arrives ahead of the duo’s 12th album, the Stuart Price-produced Electric, out July 15. The album will be a significant departure from Pet Shop Boys’ last album, Elysium. As Neil Tennant tells Stereogum.com: “It just became a full-fledged Pet Shop Boys dance album — which isn’t to say it doesn’t have proper songs, but it’s a little more experimental and loose in structure. It’s a collection of songs with a very strong dance bias.”
With a title like “Alive” you know Empire of the Sun’s new single is going to be the kind of uplifting, fantasia of a pop song that pours out of open windows on brilliantly sunny summer days. Cynicism just doesn’t exist in the world where this spun-glass-and-tourmaline song comes from, and the video for “Alive” gives you a glimpse of that far-flung fantasy land. It, and the song itself, are your invitation to put on tribal/Kabuki eye makeup and feather and dance around your apartment brazenly on a Tuesday! Whatever. You’re like, “Shut up! Are we at Burning Man right now?”
