Behaviour (spelled Behavior in the United States) is the fourth studio album by the English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 22 October 1990 by Parlophone. A Japanese special edition included a bonus mini CD, exclusive artwork and printed lyrics in a white velvet-like box.
Contents
Background
Harold Faltermeyer produced Behaviour at his Red Deer studio in Munich, Germany (West Germany at the time of recording). Because they were dissatisfied with the available digital synthesisers and samples, Pet Shop Boys wanted to use analogue synthesisers. Faltermeyer was chosen as a producer as he happened to be an expert on analogue equipment. Recording began in April 1990 and took ten weeks, with a break in the middle.
The result was a Pet Shop Boys album that differed from both the previous album, Introspective, and the 1993 follow-up, Very. In places, the album expands upon the synth-pop genre with flavours of guitar pop ballads, as with "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave" and "My October Symphony" (a song about the decline of the Soviet Union), featuring guitarist Johnny Marr with whom Neil Tennant had worked on the 1989 Electronic song "Getting Away with It". Later, the duo reflected on the different style of Behaviour: "It was more reflective and more musical-sounding, and also it probably didn't have irritatingly crass ideas in it, like our songs often do." They were inspired by fellow synth-pop group Depeche Mode's album Violator, released earlier that same year, which had "raised the stakes", according to Chris Lowe.
