“ALL THE HALLMARKS ARE HERE, COALESCING ON WEST END GIRLS, ONE OF THE ALLTIME GREAT NO.1 RECORDS”
Five years after first bonding over a shared love of Soft Cell and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark at a King’s Road hi-fi store, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe officially joined the pantheon of British electro-pop duos themselves. The pair’s 1986 debut studio album undeniably shared elements of their musical inspirations: the lustful pick-up anthem I Want A Lover (“No need for conversation as we’re driving home”) could have been lifted from Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, while Stephen Hague was recruited in-between producing OMD’s Crush and The Pacific Age. However, Please also proved that Pet Shop Boys were capable of carving out their own distinctly arch path.
From Tennant’s deadpan delivery and Noel Coward-esque witticisms to Lowe’s banks of arpeggiated synths, all the hallmarks of PSB’s career are here, coalescing to perfection on West End Girls, a tale of inner-city life that remains one of the all-time great No.1 records, both in the UK and US. But like much of the album, its unusual melting pot of mournful trumpets, bustling traffic noise and hip-hop beats didn’t come easily.
Indeed, the pair had spent an entire year working with Hi-NRG maestro Bobby Orlando, only to abandon all their efforts after signing with larger-than-life impresario Tom Watkins and major label Parlophone. Luckily, five tracks were rescued by new partner-in-crime Hague, including their transatlantic chart-topper, the melodramatic Tonight Is Forever (later revived for their collaboration with Liza Minnelli) and TV soundtrack favourite Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money), a majestic anti-Thatcherite anthem regularly misconstrued as a celebration of yuppie culture.
Suburbia, an ode to the disaffected youth inspired by the Brixton riots of the early 1980s, and the domestic androgyny of closer Why Don’t We Live Together?, further underlined PSB’s penchant for lyrical themes that require deep diving.
But the romantic comedyfriendly sentiment of Love Comes Quickly, apparently the first song that the pair ever wrote together, and Later Tonight’s unequivocal sense of longing showed they could tackle the straightforward love song, too.
Smash Hits, the pop bible for which Tennant had previously served as deputy editor, cheekily published a mock obituary in the issue that followed his departure from the mag (“In a matter of weeks, Neil’s pop duo Pet Shop Boys will be down the dumper and he’ll come crawling back on bended knees”). Front-loaded with four consecutive Top 20 hits, Please immediately confirmed that Tennant would never need to grace their offices again.
PLEASE
Released 1986
Label Parlophone
Chart Positions UK No.3 US No.7
PLEASE
Released 1986
Label Parlophone
Chart Positions UK No.3 US No.7
“ALTHOUGH SALES SUGGEST OTHERWISE, ACTUALLY FEELS LIKE PET SHOP BOYS’ TRUE BLOCKBUSTER RECORD”
Playing up to their reputation as the pop scene’s masters of detachment, Actually’s album cover saw a typically stone-faced Lowe sitting side-by-side with Tennant failing miserably to stifle a yawn. Of course, there was nothing about the material itself to inspire such a display of boredom. This is a record, after all, which takes multiple pot shots at the Tory government (see Shopping, King’s Cross), single-handedly revived the career of a blue-eyed soul legend, and if Tennant is to be believed, even samples the voice of Luciano Pavarotti.
The Italian tenor’s vocals can apparently be heard (presumably buried way down in the mix) on Heart, the album’s second synth-pop masterclass to top the charts, and one written with Madonna in mind. The fact that the Material Girl would no doubt have snapped it up is a testament to how effortlessly PSB had made their way into the pop elite.
Although sales would suggest otherwise (it only reached No.25 in the US), Actually feels like Pet Shop Boys’ true blockbuster record. It’s home to three-week No.1 It’s A Sin, the brilliantly bombastic admission of Catholic guilt whose suitably monastic video kickstarted the pair’s symbiotic partnership with auteur Derek Jarman. It also boasts one of their most memorable, and quietly cutting, lines (“I love you, you pay my rent”), with Rent one of several further tracks taken from their abandoned Orlando sessions given a spit and polish. And it also includes one of the all-time great pop duets, What Have I Done To Deserve This?, the bittersweet love story of a “major capitalist” and “pathetic feeble wreck” that brought the inimitable 60s diva Dusty Springfield back from the musical wilderness.
Such was PSBs’ dominance that they were given their own feature film, although a surreal seaside travelogue that starred Barbara Windsor didn’t exactly pull in Bohemian Rhapsody-style numbers. Luckily,
It Couldn’t Happen Here’s title track is far less confounding, a heartfelt eulogy to an AIDS victim friend served perfectly by Angelo Badalamenti’s strings. The difficult second album syndrome that Lowe admitted to fretting over had been well and truly swerved.
ACTUALLY
Released 1987
Label Parlophone
Chart Positions UK No.2 US No.25
ACTUALLY
Released 1987
Label Parlophone