"KDX 125" (1993)

[listen]

I was today years old when I learned the KDX125 was a Kawasaki scooter manufactured in the '90s and designed for top speeds on the road, which doubtless accounts for the recurring speed racer sound effects here (echoed on "The Man Who Has Everything," the next track but one). I put off looking up the term—note that the Pet Shop Boys added the space between letters and numbers—because I assumed it was musical gear, kin one way or another (by the use of "DX" maybe) to the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, beloved of A-ha, Phil Collins, Brian Eno, Luther Vandross, and a host of others in the '80s (and loathed by Scott Miller and likely an equally large contingent). Is this the purest Chris Lowe track on the album? Perhaps—first define "Chris Lowe." There's not much obvious input from Neil Tennant, that's one point, and it carries on at max revs the disco four-on-the-floor stomp powering things since approximately "Go West," shading out these various implications of "relentless." Here's where they may be trying hardest on this second act of the show. Is that enough to make it Chris Lowe? It's the third track in the second CD and feels like the place where hard dancing has been set up, put in motion, and now has been going on a while. The mission of "KDX 125" appears to be to prolong: the dancing heat, the sound fury, the stark dynamics of melody and beat, mostly emphasizing beat, reducing down at points to only beat, only bass throb, with generous speed racer sound effects reminding those of us with the knowledge over the past 28 years to get the reference. This is not the point where you're going to sit back. Dance hard, my friend, and drive fast. Dance and drive all night.