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Pet Shop Boys
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo from London, formed in 1981 by the singer Neil Tennant and the keyboard player Chris Lowe. They met that year in a hi-fi shop in Chelsea and shared a love of disco and electronic music. Their early sound came from Hi-NRG, fast electronic disco music, and from the hip hop then emerging in New York.
Music and breakthrough
The breakthrough was West End Girls, first released in 1984 with the producer Bobby Orlando. A new recording with the producer Stephen Hague reached number 1 in England in January 1986 and later in America too. After the debut album Please (1986) came Actually (1987), with It's a Sin, which reached number 1 in 1987. Their version of Always on My Mind and the song Heart (1988) also reached the top spot. With Dusty Springfield they made What Have I Done to Deserve This?, which revived her career.
Influence
The duo sold more than a hundred million records and in 1999 were named by the Guinness Book of Records the most successful duo in British music history. They won three Brit Awards and in 2009 received the award for their contribution to music. Their only number 1 album in England was Very (1993). The foundation remained synth-pop and dance pop, but over the years they also took in house, trance and orchestral sounds. In It's a Sin, Tennant drew on memories of his schooldays, and so it became one of the songs in which the experience of gay young people in the 1980s could be heard.
Listening
Discography
Studio albums
- 1986Please
- 1987Actually
- 1988Introspective
- 1990Behaviour
- 1993Relentless
- 1993Very
- 1996Bilingual
- 1999Nightlife
- 2001Closer to Heaven (soundtrack)
- 2002Release
- 2005Battleship Potemkin (soundtrack)
- 2006Fundamental
- 2009Yes
- 2011The Most Incredible Thing (soundtrack)
- 2012Elysium
- 2013Electric
- 2016Super
- 2019Musik: Original Cast Recording (soundtrack)
- 2020Hotspot
- 2024Nonetheless
- 2026A Man From the Future (soundtrack)
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 7: The 1980sNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Synthpop Genre
Synth-pop is the most poppy branch of new wave: Kraftwerk was the example for Gary Numan, OMD and The Human League, and later for the Pet Shop Boys.