Smile If You Dare: Pointy Hats and Politics With the Pet Shop Boys, 1993-1994

A creative analysis of the band’s fifth album Very, Smile If You Dare examines topics as diverse as technological paradise, sexual paranoia and representations of class in British pop music. As well as a keen critical edge, itis equipped with an undisguised mad love for the source material, a sense of passionate abandon induced by the tragic/ecstatic synth-pop that pours out of the speakers.