Chris Heath - Pet Shop Boys, Literally

Chris Heath is a writer who has known the Pet Shop Boys since the days before their first hit West End girls went to number one all over the world. He is also the author of Pet Shop Boys versus America and two books about Robbie Williams, Feel and Reveal.

Pet Shop Boys versus America

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William Heinemann
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London, SW1V 2SA

William Heinemann is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Copyright Cage Music Limited 1990

Cover photograph: Eric Watson

Cage Music Limited has asserted their right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published by Viking in 1990
This edition was published in 2020

www.penguin.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781473575691

Its all such a long time ago. Mrs Thatcher is Prime Minister. The Berlin Wall still stands. Hong Kong is a British colony. The Tiananmen Square massacre has just happened. The AIDS epidemic is at its height. The UK rave scene is in full swing. Derek Jarman is alive and making films. George Michael is everywhere but the biggest UK pop stars are Kylie, Jason and Bros. Its the end of the 80s, the summer of 1989, and we are embarking on our first tour.

Weve never toured before. The cost of our ambitious staging ideas has made that impossible and we havent been prepared to compromise. We have also wondered if playing live concerts is what Pet Shop Boys should do can do? Now, after four very successful albums and a quartet of number one singles, weve decided to accept an offer to tour Hong Kong and Japan. Then we add some UK dates. And so it is that our first ever full-length concert takes place in an arena in Hong Kong. Its followed by three nights at the Budokan in Tokyo and arena concerts in Osaka and Nagoya. The UK tour includes three-night residencies in Birmingham Arena and Wembley Arena. No wonder were a bit hyper. Weve never played a full-length concert in a small venue let alone an arena. This is a beginning for us.

Accompanying us with his notebook is Chris Heath, still writing for Smash Hits but commissioned by us to produce a book recording this first tour from the inside. We have a tendency to perform to the notebook, making preposterous, cruel, embarrassing and flippant comments. Were still fighting our pop versus rock war. But in quieter moments were idealistic and surprisingly revealing about ourselves. For two people who officially dont like talking about themselves, we do a lot of it.

In 2019, 30 years after the events chronicled in this book, we once more played an arena in Hong Kong and returned to the Budokan in Tokyo. Since the late 90s, touring has become a regular routine. We still worry about the rock-and-roll clichs, laugh at how ridiculous it can be, moan if there are poor ticket sales, struggle with the complexities of touring a theatrical show and are thrilled by the enthusiasm of audiences but were used to it now and have been for quite a while. In 1989 it was all new. We were on a steep learning curve. Its all in this book.

Neil TennantChris Lowe

When we undertook our first ever tour in June and July 1989, we asked Chris Heath to accompany us with the idea of eventually producing some sort of picture book with a short text. For several weeks, in Hong Kong, Japan and back home in Britain, he followed us and the other forty-odd people on the tour around with a notebook, jotting down everything of interest he witnessed. In the end we agreed that he would write a more detailed account than we first imagined. The book you are holding is the result.

Although we have never been keen on most of the publicity and self-promotion that inevitably accompanies a successful pop group, it seemed a worthwhile notion to produce a book through the close access to its subject that the normal official biography gets, without the starstruck blandness that usually results. Reading the manuscript for the first time, we were, to be honest, more or less horrified. Are we really that horrible? Is Neil really, by popular agreement, like a schoolteacher? Does Chris always complain so much? Are we that self-obsessed, so frequently rude? Do we discuss money, snipe about other pop stars quite so much? Apparently, yes.

Perhaps we will learn as much as anyone else who reads this book about the Pet Shop Boys.

Neil TennantChris Lowe

Chris Heath would like to thank the Pet Shop Boys for their help with this book, and would also like to thank the following: Michael Braun, Murray Chalmers, Rob Holden, Ivan Kushlick, Pepa Misas, Jonathan Riley, Derrin Schlesinger, William Shaw, Gill Smith, Jill Wall, Lawrence Watson and Johnny Wright.

Neil Tennant (b. 1954) grew up in Newcastle. In 1970 and 1971 he played acoustic guitar and sang in a folk group called Dust. In 1972 he moved to London to study history at the Polytechnic of North London. His first job was as British editor of the American firm Marvel Comics. He subsequently worked at Macdonald Educational Publishing (1977), ITV Books (1981) and at Smash Hits magazine (1982).

Chris Lowe (b. 1959) grew up in Blackpool. He briefly played keyboards in a school heavy metal group, Stallion, then became trombonist in the school orchestra and in a local seven-piece jazz band One Under The Eight. In 1978 he moved to Liverpool and studied architecture at Liverpool University.

In 1981, during Chriss year of work experience at Michael Aukett Associates in London, the two struck up a conversation in a Kings Road hi-fi shop and were soon writing songs together. In 1983 they persuaded a cult American disco producer called Bobby O (full name Bobby Orlando), whom they idolized, to make records with them. The first result, a song called West End girls, was a modest club hit. In 1984 they signed a management contract with Tom Watkins. In 1985, after lengthy legal negotiations to extricate them from their contract with Bobby O, they signed to EMI Records subsidiary, Parlophone Records. Their first single, Opportunities (lets make lots of money), was a flop. The next, West End girls, reached number one all over the world.

They have since released four LPs Please (1986), Disco (a collection of dance-floor remixes, 1986), Actually (1987) and Introspective (1988) and have had twelve British hit singles: West End girls (1985), Love comes quickly, Opportunities (lets make lots of money) (a re-recorded version) and Suburbia (all 1986); Its a sin, What have I done to deserve this?, Rent and Always on my mind (all 1987); Heart, Domino dancing and Left to my own devices (all 1988); and Its alright (1989). They have also written and co-produced: a single for Patsy Kensit Im not scared (released under the artist name Eighth Wonder, 1988); two singles for Dusty Springfield Nothing has been proved and In private (both 1989); and a whole LP for Liza Minnelli