Pet Shop Boys
The Pet Shop Boys are one of the top 5 Dance artists of all time and among the most literate. With his journalism background, Neil Tennant’s lyrics have broken new ground in thoughtful dissertations on life while settling comfortably into catchy electronic grooves provided by his musical partner Chris Lowe. Following their breakthrough in 1986 with West End Girls, the Pet Shop Boys have recorded hit after hit for the dancefloor with no end in sight.
Both members of Pet Shop Boys hail from the north of England. Neil Tennant was born in 1954 and Chris Lowe in 1959. Prior to meeting, Neil worked in the publishing industry and Chris attended architecture school. The two met by chance in an electronics shop August 19, 1981. They quickly realized they had a common interest in Dance music and began writing music together. They initially called themselves West End but later came up with Pet Shop Boys from some friends who worked in a pet shop.
In 1982 Neil began to work for Smash Hits magazine as a music journalist. He was sent to New York on assignment in August 1983 to interview the Police who were nearing the peak of their popularity with the release of Synchronicity. Neil and Chris were personally obsessed with the Hi-Energy records of producer Bobby Orlando. Neil had lunch with Orlando and Bobby O suggested making a record with the Pet Shop Boys. The result was the first version of West End Girls released in April 1984. It was a minor hit in clubs in the U.S. but was not a significant breakthrough.
A year later, after negotiations to leave the contract with Bobby Orlando, the duo signed a record deal with Parlophone Records and Neil Tennant left his job with Smash Hits to concentrate on his music. In the summer of 1985 the first version of Opportunities was released and again sales were underwhelming, but,in August, Pet Shop Boys re-recorded West End Girls with producer Stephen Hague. The new version was the breakthrough the duo needed. It eventually climbed to the top of the Pop charts in the U.K. and in the next few months reached #1 around the world from the U.S. to Hong Kong and New Zealand.
West End Girls was the first of nearly 40 Pop hits in the U.K. and 30 Dance hits in the U.S., including 8 U.S. Dance number ones. The duo’s first album Please appeared in 1986 and was another global success. In the fall Disco, an album of remixes, was released to capitalize on the pair’s success in Dance clubs. In 1987 in advance of a new album the singles It’s a Sin and What Have I Done To Deserve This?, a duet with Dusty Springfield, were released, both reaching the Pop and Dance top ten. They are included on the second studio album Actually which also features a third smash hit, a Dance remake of Always On My Mind.
Domino Dancing, recorded with Latin Freestyle producer Lewis Martinee, appeared in September 1988. It was another top 10 Dance hit but barely reached the top 20 of the Pop chart. From this point forward, the Pet Shop Boys would continue to score major Pop hits at home in the U.K. and major Dance hits in the U.S. but would be largely ignored by U.S. Pop audiences. The next album Introspective appeared in late fall 1988 and was soon followed by the single Left To My Own Devices featuring elaborate production by Trevor Horn. In 1989 the first of the Pet Shop Boys production work for other artists, a single by Dusty Springfield and an album by Liza Minnelli, were released. The duo released their own single It’s Alright in 1989, a remake of a song originally recorded by Chicago House artist Sterling Void. In June Pet Shop Boys embarked on their first concert tour with lavish direction from film director Derek Jarman. The 14-date tour included six dancers, extravagant costumes and new film shot by Jarman to be projected during the concert. In another outside project during 1989 Neil Tennant joined New Order lead vocalist Bernard Sumner and ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to form the group Electronic.
The Pet Shop Boys 1990 album Behavior is more reflective and subdued in tone than its predecessors. The duo worked with producer Harold Faltermeyer and Johnny Marr plays guitar on two songs. The album’s second single Being Boring is inspired by a party invitation once received by Neil that quoted author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda saying ‘She was never bored, mainly because she was never being boring.’ The video by photographer Bruce Weber caused a stir due to its use of nudity, but many lauded it as one of the top music videos of the year. In early 1991 Pet Shop Boys released a Hi-Energy medley of U2’s Where the Streets Have No Name and Frankie Valli’s classic I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You that kicked off a string of 9 U.S. Top 10 Dance hits in a row. U2 responded to the release with their own statement ‘What have we done to deserve this?’ The Pet Shop Boys celebrated their first 6 years of success with a greatest hits collection titled Discography and a video collection appropriately titled Videography at the end of 1991.
In May 1992 Pet Shop Boys performed in concert at the Hacienda in Manchester, England to coincide with an exhibition of Derek Jarman’s paintings and the 10th anniversary of the Hacienda. They decided that they wanted to include a suitable cover version in the set and chose the Village People’s Disco classic Go West. In June the duo performed in New York City at a benefit for the organization Lifebeat which supports members of the music business with AIDS. In October of 1992 Neil and Chris were enlisted to work with Culture Club’s Boy George on the theme song for the film The Crying Game. It eventually became a major comeback hit for Boy George on both sides of the Atlantic. In June 1993 in advance of a new album, the single Can You Forgive Her?, detailing a man coming to grips with suppressed homosexuality, was released and scored the Pet Shop Boys first #1 Dance hit in the U.S. since 1987. It was followed to the top of the chart by the release of Go West as a single. Both are included on the Very album released in September 1993. In 1994, for the first time, Pet Shop Boys recorded a single for charity, Absolutely Fabulous. It is a tribute to the Absolutely Fabulous television show, benefited British Comic Relief, and includes the show’s stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley contributing snippets of dialogue. Some fans were horrified but it became yet another top 10 hit. In the fall the duo embarked on their third major tour. This tour was titled Discovery and covered mostly Latin America. A number of new arrangements of material were given their first public performances including a medley of It’s a Sin and I Will Survive.
In the mid-90’s the Pet Shop Boys continued to do outside work with other artists including a remix for David Bowie and writing and producing a song for Tina Turner. The pair returned to #1 on the U.S. dance charts in 1996 with the single Before. It was followed by the single Se a Vida e (That’s the Way Life Is) in the U.K. and the album Bilingual which featured the influence of Latin sounds and instruments from their Discovery tour. A cover version of Somewhere from the musical West Side Story appeared in the summer of 1997 and broke the string of Top 10 Dance hits in the U.S. Neil explained that they recorded it ‘because we like it.’ As part of their ever more open exploration of life as gay men and support of the gay community, Neil and Chris performed at Gay Pride in London July 5, 1997 before a huge open air
audience.
The Pet Shop Boys fulfilled a long-term dream with the opening of their musical Closer To Heaven in the spring of 2001 in London’s West End. In June Neil and Chris consolidated much of their extensive recorded legacy with new special editions of their 6 studio albums featuring an extra disc with each that collected remixes and other recordings released during the period of the album’s initial release. It’s the first CD appearance of a wide range of tracks. The duo celebrated the success in the fall of 2001 of Break 4 Love, a collaboration with producer Peter Rauhofer and their 8th #1 U.S. Dance hit. Pet Shop Boys’ seventh studio album Release appeared in 2002 and featured stripped-down mixes incorporating more guitar than ever before. The duo appeared in a different manner at the top of the Dance chart in 2003 as their remix was included as part of Yoko Ono’s chart-topping Walking On Thin Ice single. A new compilation of Neil and Chris’ work titled Pop Art was released at the end of 2003 and included another new single Flamboyant. 2004 has been a year of additional accomplishments including an open-air performance in London’s Trafalgar Square of new music composed for the classic silent film Battleship Potemkin. Pet Shop Boys show no signs of slowing down their artistic output.