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Pet Shop Boys (without the definite article
"the") are a highly influential UK electronic music act. Founded in the early 1980s, the duo (Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe) had immense commercial success, starting with their first single "West End
Girls" in 1985. They are one of the most consistently successful duos in
pop music. They have had four Number One singles in the UK: "West End Girls",
"It's a Sin", "Always on My Mind" (a cover of an Elvis Presley hit) and "Heart". Another well-known single, "What Have I Done to
Deserve This?", was a collaboration with Dusty Springfield that
directly led to a resurgence of interest in her music.
On August 19th 1981, Tennant and Lowe met at an electronics shop on the Kings Road in Chelsea by chance and began to write songs together. After rejecting the name West End, they settled on the
name Pet Shop Boys, a name they had previously used to describe some friends of theirs who ran a pet shop in Ealing.
At this time, Tennant's day job was reporting for teen pop magazine Smash Hits. Tennant was sent to interview The
Police for the magazine, and while over there had lunch with his idol, New York producer Bobby Orlando. Soon after, Tennant,
Lowe and Bobby O' make their first versions of many of their early hits, most notably West End Girls. However, success does
not come easily and, after some minor club hits, Pet Shop Boys cut their contractual ties with Bobby O' and instead sign up to
the Parlophone label.
Their music's trademark sound is a combination of pure synthesised pop, with sometimes slightly over-the-top instrumentation,
contrasting with Tennant's laconic vocals. Strong studio production values mark out their work.
Visually, the group have always mixed the avant garde with tailored fashions and
were frequently accused of lacking stage presence, in a deliberate reaction to the hyper-cheerful boy band music of the time demonstrated by, say, Wham!. A typical early
performance featured Lowe in the background hitting the occasional note on a Fairlight synthesizer keyboard and Tennant singing but otherwise unanimated in the foreground.
Pet Shop Boys are significant figures in queer culture for such songs
as "West End Girls", their cover of The Village People's "Go
West," "Can You Forgive Her?", and "It's A Sin". Neil Tennant came out around the
time of their album Very (supposedly his answer to the
question, "Are you gay?", although another story says that the band chose album titles based
on words they've been using a lot during the album's production - such as Actually, Please and Disco).
While they seem to have a penchant for one word album titles, it is reported that they named their first album Please in
order to force the public to be polite when asking for their record ('Can I have the new Pet Shop Boys album, Please?')
Curiously, this made the album a runaway hit in Japan, where the fans appreciated the duo's apparent politeness!
In 2000, Pet Shop Boys collaborated with Jonathan Harvey to write the
musical Closer to
Heaven. As of 2004, the musical has had only one run, for less than a year at the Arts
Theatre in London.
Neil Tennant also is involved as producer and singer with Bernard
Sumner and Johnny Marr's Electronic project. Chris Lowe also contributes but to a lesser extent publicly.
Discography
- Please (1985) - Rereleased (2001)
- Disco (1986)
- Actually (1987) - Rereleased (2001)
- Introspective (1988) - Rereleased (2001)
- Behaviour (1990) - Rereleased (2001)
- Discography: The complete singles collection (1991)
- Very (1993) - Rereleased (2001)
- Very Relentless (1993) - Limited two-disc edition of
Very
- Disco 2 (1994)
- Alternative (1995)
- Bilingual (1996) - Rereleased (2001)
- Nightlife (1999)
- Release (2002)
- Disco 3 (2003)
- Pop Art: Pet Shop Boys - The
Hits (2003)
Filmography
- It Couldn't Happen Here
- Videography (music video collection)
- Somewhere (concert video)
- Montage (concert video)
Bibliography
- Pet Shop Boys, Literally, by Chris Heath, ISBN 0306804948
- Pet Shop Boys versus America, by Chris Heath, ISBN 1886894310
- Pet Shop Boys, annually, by Chris Heath, ISBN 0723568421
External links
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