No doubt someone has already drawn the parallel between Pet Shop Boys‘ Electric, their dance-centric new album, released in the wake of last fall’s more sedate Elysium and the duo’s Behaviour/Very sequence from two decades earlier.

But struck by that same discographical connection, I recently revisited Very via the 2001 special edition of the album, Very: Further Listening 1992–1994. Reading the accompanying interview with Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe about their 1993 album in the liner notes, I took immediate note of this exchange, included at the very start:

“Going into this record [Very] we were slightly disappointed by the performance of Behaviour,” Neil remembers. “Behaviour was slagged off at the time for not being a dance album. We were feeling a little insecure, maybe. Anyway, we decided to do a mega dance-pop album.”

“I think you always react against the one you’ve done previously,” says Chris. “We wanted it to be a bit more up.”

And more up Very most definitely was, with Pet Shop Boys throwing down the gauntlet with the set’s first single, the album’s lead track, “Can You Forgive Her?”

Twenty years ago this week, “Can You Forgive Her?” made its debut appearance on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, thanks to the rise of alternative radio stations and their ready embrace of new music from other veteran new wave acts like Duran Duran, The Cure, and New Order. Soon reaching #10, “Can You Forgive Her?” became Pet Shop Boys’ biggest-ever rock radio hit. Over on their former chart home, the Billboard Hot 100, the single didn’t deliver, bubbling under at a very unforgiving #109.

Now, of course, the question is whether Pet Shop Boys will hew closely to history by producing an even clubbier companion to Electric like they did with the double album, Very Relentless. I was lucky enough to snap up a copy of that limited edition release in 1993 and shelved alongside the original orange ‘Lego’ jewel case edition and the 2001 expanded album, it makes Very the only album in my CD collection that I’ve got three very different versions of.

Purchase Pet Shop Boys – “Can You Forgive Her?” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.