Brian Higgins and the hit factor

The latest issue of the Pet Shop Boys Club magazine ‘Literally’ features a lengthy interview with Xenomania principle Brian Higgins. From what Neil and Chris have said about recording their album ‘Yes’ already, it seems Higgins and all the Xenomania team are highly talented but eccentric individuals. Yet the attributes that emerge from this interview are simply arrogance and overconfidence. This interview, to me, leaves him sounding like a driven, talented but highly unlikable individual.

The best evidence for Higgins’s true personality lies with the other acts with which he has worked. Sam Sparro says of his failed collaboration: “I did meet Brian Higgins but he, er, I can’t really comment on that. He’s a strong personality.”

Referring to another failed collaboration (I strongly suspect that here he is referring to his work on New Order’s “Waiting for the Siren’s Call”) Higgins states: “I’ve had the experience happen where the big artists were fine until they got into the mix room and they basically pulled the record to pieces. So I took my name off the record and the writing credits off the record. So big artists are often jerks of the highest order.”

Okay so you can’t hope to be best friends with everyone you work with, but Higgins does seem to have a habit of upsetting people. The name "Xenomania" means, according to Higgins, "the exact opposite of Xenophobia...a love of everything, of all cultures." Quite how one reconciles this philosophy with Higgins statement that “We’re Xenomania, so fuck you!” I do not know.

You can’t deny Higgins and Xenomania ARE very good at what they do. However, Higgins’s words seem to dismiss any other type of song writing other that the chart fodder they specialise in. There is a whole world of music out there and the vast majority of it is far more interesting, innovative and successful than Xenomania’s output. Higgins’s should be more conscious of this if he does not wish to sound quite so arrogant.

Yet there is a considerable amount of sense in Higgins evaluation of the Pet Shop Boys and their music. His feeling that they had not made a decent record since 1988 or 1989 is obviously complete rubbish; yet his assessment of “I think the rhythm programming had gone” and that they became self indulgent and used their music to chronicle their personal lives does hold water.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and ‘Yes’, as I have already stated, is a brilliant record. I guess when considering working with Xenomania one has to undertake a risk benefit analysis. Will the final product justify the process? Can you endure a personality as strong as Brian Higgins? If you want a brilliant pop record then the answer has to be Yes.