Hotspot is the fourteenth studio album by English
synth-pop duo
Pet Shop Boys, released on 24 January 2020 by the band's own label
x2, through
Kobalt Label Services.[2] It was supported by the singles "
Dreamland" featuring
Years & Years, which was released on 25 October 2019, and "Burning the Heather", which was released alongside the album announcement on 13 December 2019.[3] The duo planned to tour the UK and Europe in support of the album in mid-2020.[2] The album charted in numerous countries, reaching number three on the album charts in the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain.
Background and recording
The album was primarily recorded at
Hansa Studios in
Berlin where the duo have written "most of [their] music over the last ten years",[4] with the exception of "Burning the Heather", which was recorded at
RAK Studios in
London, where
Bernard Butler contributed guitar to the track. The duo's website dubbed it the last of a trilogy of albums produced by
Stuart Price, beginning with Electric in 2013. All tracks were written by
Neil Tennant and
Chris Lowe.[5]
Hotspot was met with generally positive reviews. At
Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 75 out of 100, based on 18 reviews.[6]
In his
Substack-published "Consumer Guide" column,
Robert Christgau highlighted "I Don't Wanna", "Wedding in Berlin", and "Will-o-the-Wisp", and wrote in summary of the album: "'Happy people/Living in a sad world,' they celebrate their good fortune by setting it to music both stirring and contained – music that never conceals its limitations".[8]
Track listing
All tracks are written by
Neil Tennant and
Chris Lowe aside from "Dreamland" which was written by Tennant, Lowe and
Olly Alexander and "Monkey Business" which was written by Tennant, Lowe and
Stuart Price
^"Czech Albums – Top 100".
ČNS IFPI. Note: On the chart page, select 05.Týden 2020 on the field besides the words "CZ – ALBUMS – TOP 100" to retrieve the correct chart. Retrieved 4 February 2020.