Pet Shop Boys’ Lost Room: Glittery Electro Pop at its Best

Even though the Pet Shop Boys are best known for West End Girls, they have been putting out a steady stream of original work over the last few years. The Lost EP is their latest release and the five track record moves between electro pop and a stripped back Death Cab – esque ballad for the final track. For me, the standout track is the first cut, Lost Room.

You are instantly drawn into this dark synth Blade Runner world with a compelling sci-fi keyboard. Once the electric percussion kicks in you are firmly placed within a Pet Shop Boys track. This is a familiar pop space the duo has honed to a sharp blade over decades. Lost Room is full of musical contradictions as you go back and forth from sharp and dark electro screeches and drones to some beautifully glittery synth flourishes. What might seem like a straight forward electro pop track on the surface is far more complex underneath.

Contradictions between light and dark continue with the vocal. I think Neil Tennant may be an immortal vampire, because his vocal has not aged a day. His glimmering and fragile vocal delivery is iridescent throughout the track. His shimmering vocal is in stark contrast to the track’s larger dark lyrical themes of loss, family, pain, toxic masculinity, war and violence. Much like the instrumentation, there is a great deal more going on with this track than meets the eye.

I think it is this conflict between the surface level of the song vs. its deeper meaning that I find so compelling. Don’t get me wrong, the opening synth hook is so fire that it gets me every time…but I seem to get something new out of the track with each listen. This is a track that rewards multiple listens, but also can be thrown on by the DJ to keep the party going. It is rare to have a track that serves both camps equally well, which is why The Pet Shop Boys are the pinnacle of electro pop.

Listen to The Lost Room