The Pet Shop Boys were undoubtedly one of the most innovative and commercially successful chart acts of the 1980s. Whereas so many synthesiser pop acts of that era have faded into obscurity, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have established themselves as “rock royalty” at the pinnacle of British popular music.
From the beginning, it was an unlikely formula. Neil Tennant was a former assistant editor of Smash Hits (New York edition) who forsook the bright lights and big city for the brighter lights (and global reach) of electronic music pop stardom. He formed a band, the Pet Shop Boys, named after a friend who worked in a pet shop, with Christopher Sean Lowe – a man he had met by chance in an audio store off the King’s Road in London.
The Pet Shop Boys established an inimitable and defining style, mixing cutting edge cool with wry irony and deadpan lyrics. Neil was the flamboyant and loquacious showman, whereas Chris concealed himself behind his signature dark glasses and headgear (a baseball cap with the capitalised word “BOY” being an early trademark). The duo scored an immediate smash hit in both the United States and United Kingdom with “West End Girls”, a racy, urban and rap-driven swipe at the decadence and glamour of 1980s London. Their debut album “Please“, whose sleeve featured the Pet Shop Boys in a variety of London venues, was an assured and immediate success.
In their triumphant “imperial phase” the Pet Shop Boys could, it seemed, do no wrong. A series of monumental tracks followed, including “Suburbia”, which lifted the lid off alienation and boredom in Metroland, and “Always on my Mind”, the Elvis cover that yielded a Christmas Number One in 1987.
Musical tides turned and in 1990 the accomplished and mature album “Behaviour” was relatively less successful, however it is regarded by most fans or “Petheads” as a career highlight. Then the Pet Shop Boys returned with the astonishing, provocative and joyful “Very” (1993) and their place in the pop pantheon was assured.
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