The orange Lego-style case looked like a toy, but inside was the most confrontational pop record of 1993. Pet Shop Boys had spent a decade turning irony into a weapon, yet their fifth studio album Very arrived wrapped in bright plastic studs, almost daring listeners to take it seriously. Released on Parlophone on 27 September 1993, the record became the only Pet Shop Boys album to top the UK albums chart. Thirty-three years later, that contradiction between packaging and content still defines how people remember the project.
The gap between Behaviour and Very stretched nearly three years, an eternity for a duo that had once released singles at a relentless pace. In between came Discography: The Complete Singles Collection, a reminder of how much ground Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe had already covered. Behaviour had earned respectful reviews but modest sales, and its most admired single, Being Boring, stalled at number 20 in the UK. The message from the marketplace was clear: sophistication alone would not keep them at the centre of British pop.
A deliberate reaction to Behaviour
So Very became a deliberate reaction. Tennant explained the title by listing qualities: very energetic, very funny, very sad, very romantic, very pop, very danceable, and occasionally very silly. The shift was audible from the first track. Can You Forgive Her? opened the album with orchestral stabs and a marching beat, replacing the understated textures of Behaviour with arrangements that felt almost theatrical. The record ran twelve main compositions, each one pushing further into richly instrumented dance-pop territory.
Two singles from the album broke into the UK top ten, but they could hardly have been more different. Can You Forgive Her? wrapped humiliation and schoolboy memories in a euphoric chorus. Go West, the album's closing track, transformed a Village People song into something both camp and strangely mournful. The music videos for these singles were unusually inventive, matching the visual boldness of Mark Farrow's album design. Farrow's cover turned the CD case itself into a tactile object, ribbed and bright, impossible to ignore on a shelf.
The coming-out album
The lyrics made Very something more than a commercial reset. Critics and fans began calling it a coming-out album, and the timing was not accidental. Tennant had started speaking openly about his homosexuality around this period, after years of rumour and speculation. Songs like Young Offender and To Speak Is A Sin carried a directness that earlier Pet Shop Boys material had often disguised in ambiguity. The album did not announce a single revelation so much as it removed the need for coded language.
The tracklist moved through distinct emotional registers. Liberation ran just over four minutes of sweeping pop, while Dreaming Of The Queen stretched past four minutes with a more sombre tone. Yesterday When I Was Mad offered a wry look at touring and perception, and The Theatre, the longest cut at over five minutes, leaned into the album's dramatic instincts. One And One Make Five and A Different Point Of View kept the tempo high, while One In A Million closed the main sequence before Go West brought the record to its anthemic finish.
Chart success and certifications
A hidden track called Postscript added a final whisper after Go West faded, running barely over a minute. The limited edition came as a double CD, with the second disc titled Relentless, a collection of extended dance mixes that extended the album's energy beyond the main tracklist. Q Magazine later placed Very at number 91 on its list of the hundred greatest British albums. In the United States the record earned gold certification, while in the UK it went triple platinum, confirming that the commercial gamble had paid off.
The album's twelve tracks each carried a specific duration, from I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing at just over three minutes to Go West at exactly five. Those numbers mattered less than the cumulative effect: a pop record that refused to choose between sincerity and spectacle. Pet Shop Boys had always understood that dance music could carry complicated feelings, but Very made that understanding impossible to miss. The restraint of Behaviour gave way to something louder, brighter, and more openly vulnerable.
The restraint of Behaviour gave way to something louder, brighter, and more openly vulnerable.
Thirty-three years on, the orange case still sits on shelves looking like it belongs in a different decade. That was the point. Very arrived at a moment when British pop was fragmenting, and it responded by being more itself than ever. The hidden track, the second disc, the theatrical videos, the chart position, the triple platinum certification in the UK, the gold record in America: all of it added up to a statement that Pet Shop Boys could be both the cleverest act in the room and the most direct. The toy-like packaging turned out to be the most honest thing about it.