PET SHOP BOYS - the history of the songs "It's A Sin" (1987), "Heart" (1987), "Go West" (1993) and "Can You Forgive Her?" (1993). Biography Pet Shop Boys Pet shop boys biography

- Neil, what direction do you profess: someone classifies you as a pop performer, someone as a trance ...

Perhaps we can be attributed to pop artists. But throughout our history, we have constantly improved and changed our style. Compare our latest album Super and our debut album Please and you will immediately realize that they sound very different. We are influenced by modern trance music. At the same time, we developed our own style.

- Doesn't it offend you that many consider you a retro?

I can't stand being called "retro". Better "vintage", but not "retro". Or here's another option: "legendary", how do you like it?

- But still, your most famous song was written and really a long time ago ...

Go West was written by the Village People as a kind of gay anthem and is dedicated to how many gay people moved to San Francisco in the 70s. We recorded it 15-16 years later. It acquired an elegiac tone - people began to reflect on the theme of the "dream of all gays", which was overshadowed by the AIDS epidemic. When we made the version, we tried to display both light and dark tones of the composition. The fact that it is often compared with the anthem of the USSR is just a coincidence, which we had no idea at that time. We came to Moscow to take part in filming for MTV. And then we realized that "moving west", originally in San Francisco, for Russia at that moment meant economic changes, the transition from communism to a new system - that is, in fact, "going to the West."

- Five times the Pet Shop Boys have been nominated for a Grammy, butYou haven't received a single statue yet. It's a shame?

It doesn't bother me at all. You know, David Bowie won the Grammy not for any single record, but for his overall contribution to music. So is Neil Young. While Sting must have 15 of them. It's not that I disrespect Sting - they just like relaxed jazz inspired music.

- Is your army of fans decreasing over time or not?

We have a lot of loyal fans in a number of countries - Holland, Germany, Denmark. Many of the Russian fans are gay. They are waving Russian flags. We have already performed in Russia probably eight times. And we are happy to return here and appreciate our Russian fans. Many years ago, namely in 1987, when the hit It’s a sin was released, there was the first ever exchange of Soviet children who came to visit British families. When asked who they would like to meet, they said, "We want to see the Pet Shop Boys!" - then we first met with Russian fans.

- Where will you perform this time?

This time we visit only Moscow. Before that, we were only in the capital and in St. Petersburg. One day we would like to visit other cities to get a more accurate impression of Russia, but so far we have not been anywhere.

- How do you see Russians?

Russians are warm, friendly, sometimes impenetrable. But once you get to know them better, you will see that they are very nice people.

- Do you know Russian music?

I love Russian classical music - Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky. BUT I don't know any of the current performers.

  1. Prior to Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant worked as a music journalist and Chris Lowe studied architecture. They first met in August 1981 at a musical instrument store, where Neil was shopping for parts for his synthesizer and Chris was looking at the shelves, laughing hysterically. It was this abnormally loud laugh that attracted Neal.

  2. The duo's original name was West End, after the eponymous elite district of London. To the question "Why was the group called the Pet Shop Boys?" Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe answer that they themselves did not work in any pet stores, but often had fun in one of these London shops where Chris's friends worked.

  3. From the very beginning of their career, the friends determined that they would play electronic music, drawing on Italo disco and electro. So it's not surprising that Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, Bobby Orlando, New Order and New York club music have had a particular influence on the band's sound.

  4. The duo went on their first tour 8 years after their founding, in 1989. For real concerts, the group prepared for a long time and carefully, as a result of which their once static performances turned into theatrical shows with scenery, dressing up, dancers and more. Concerts were held in Hong Kong, Japan and the UK.

  5. In 1993, the Pet Shop Boys released the album Very, which is considered by many to be the masterpiece of Eurodance at the time. Filming of the international album hit Go West partially took place in our capital, where the musicians were captured walking along Red Square (in Moscow, Pet Shop Boys were invited to the opening of MTV broadcasting in Russia; the group drove around the city in the former limousine of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev).

  6. Over the course of their career, the Pet Shop Boys have made many covers of songs by other famous musicians, and some of these versions have become more popular than the originals, such as covers of Elvis Presley's Always On My Mind and Village People Go West.

  7. The Pet Shop Boys are known for fruitful collaborations with other musicians: Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli (in 1989 they wrote and recorded the entire album Results for her), pop group Eighth Wonder (composition I'm Not Scared), Robbie Williams (songs No Regrets and She's Madonna). In the 1990s, the Pet Shop Boys began remixing songs by other artists: Blur - Boys And Girls, David Bowie - Hallo Spaceboy, Yoko Ono - Walking on the Thin Ice, Rammstein - Mein Teil, Madonna - Sorry, The Killers - Read My Mind and so on.

  8. The titles of the Pet Shop Boys compositions gravitate towards two polar opposites: they are either short, minimalist titles (Rent, Before, Minimal), or, conversely, long sentence titles (You only tell me you love me when you're drunk, This must be the place I waited years to leave, I don't know what you want but I can't give it anymore, where, contrary to music industry practice, only the first word is capitalized in song titles); also frequent are titles-questions. Interestingly, the albums also have one-word titles: Please, Release, PopArt and others.

  9. Pet Shop Boys also pay special attention to fashion, which is not only reflected in the musicians' everyday clothes, but is also an integral part of their stage image. The role of the dandy is given to Tennant, while Lowe prefers a semi-sporty style (baseball caps and sneakers) and projects a detached image on himself, which he also helps to strengthen with fashionable sunglasses, which he has hardly taken off since the early 90s.

In these very moments, when you felt so comfortable and serene that you allowed yourself to read about the old British duo, which has been supplying music for the dance floors for 30 years, professors from London and Oslo gathered at the University of Edinburgh to read their reports as part of a two-day, tight schedule from 9.30 to 22.00, a symposium dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Pet Shop Boys record “Please”. We did not spy on the professorial elite. It is simply time to study the structure of the cement that held the bond of time together in 30 years of the most intense change that has befallen humanity.

While we were at such speeds and with such turbulence, rushing into the future, which we did not ask for, there was always something with us that did not let us go crazy. After passing through another black hole, like after the most desperate night - the electric light behind the curtains of our childhood home, the new Pet Shop Boys record was waiting for us. And, like at home, while we were wearing, they made repairs and upgrades, the record had an actual sound, and the songs had words that first appeared on the morning news. But the light of the melody remained warm, even, the port wine of emotions was cooled to the right temperature. The world is changing, and we are with it, no one has canceled work, tomorrow will be a difficult day - but that is why it is not the time to calmly talk about something really important, about love, or, in the words of Kiki from Almodovar's film, "not about Iraq and about Sarajevo - about you and me. And be sure to warm up at the disco.

"West End Girls", 1985

Pet Shop Boys songs are not a pill from reality. Adherents of understandable pop versification, dance rhythm and DJ techniques to turn on listeners, Pet Shop Boys never fell into the extreme, ridiculed by Alla Pugacheva: “She had everything right: she sang songs on the stage about the moon and about the nightingale”, nor in narcotic frenzy swotting on the receptors. In the words of Neil Tennant, vocalist and lyricist, "Picking up the sound of a certain drug so that the combination blows the roof off is, of course, also a thing, but music that works in tandem with a drug, but does not turn on at all without it, will be inferior. ". Social bitterness and even momentary political criticism, coupled with Tennant's historical education, ignited their first hit - 20 weeks at the top of the Billboard hit parade in 1986 "West End Girls" with their meticulous picture of the well-being of dysfunctional London boys; when asked how far this might take them, the song replies with the words "from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station", nodding towards Lenin's path to revolution. 16 years later, in 2002, these guys will return to the lyrics of the Pet Shop Boys in the song “London” as Russian soldiers who deserted to England from the Crimea: “We are looking for a job like credit card fraud. What did you want from us? We're not local. They plow on you here, and we are trained to be able to stand up for ourselves.

London, 2002

Russian history, due to its special distortion and the anti-bourgeois impulse carried out, is of particular interest to the Pet Shop Boys, even those who created Eisenstein. In 1990, when the parade on Red Square was canceled for the first time in the collapsing USSR on the occasion of the anniversary of the revolution, they responded with the “October Symphony” (“My October Symphonie”), the hero of which, a man who has been accustomed to marching all his life on this day, shared his very then understandable to us, as if overheard confusion and, as a result, fear: “And what, all these years, even our rightness did not save us? So we, it turns out, were such brave men ... "

Tennant's ears are just as finely tuned to political demagoguery across the Atlantic: as soon as President Bush borrowed phrases and images from Churchill's pro-war speeches while preparing the Gulf War, the Pet Shop Boys released "DJ Culture", where they drew analogies between modern politicians, who use the rhetoric of their predecessors, and DJs who include samples of other people's old recordings in their tracks. As far as the homeland is concerned, boys only need one glance from behind the curtains to nail inhumane capitalism with a single phrase, as in To Step Aside (1996): “In the square below, the workers patiently queue up to market economy provided them with what history has so far denied, for some other fate than to work for a long time and wait all the time.

To Step Aside, 1996

In addition to always being accurate and witty observations worthy of a highly paid political columnist, they never show either superiority, or whining, or “Burn it all to hell!” or “Let's kill them all!” - what builds its barricades, so predictably turning into fashion catwalks, rock music.

If the Pet Shop Boys chronically scorn anything, it's her; a song from their forthcoming LP The Pop Kids, a nostalgic track about 1990s discotheques, even includes the lyrics, "We were young, but we imagined ourselves so sophisticated, telling everyone and everyone that rock is too overrated." The Pet Shop Boys' pompous rock idol mechanism, if anyone's interested, was taken apart piece by piece in the song "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" (“How can you expect to be taken seriously?”, 1990), and the essence of rock music was compressed into the composition “How I Learned to Hate Rock-n-Roll” (“How I Learned to Hate Rock and Roll”, 1996 ): "One proclaims the obvious things, the other mocks everything that you love, the third sings of bad manners, feelings are dulled, passion is exhausted."

"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", 1990

The vocalist arranges sad thoughts into the cells of the notes laid out in the orderly sequence of a pop song, just as on a clear, invigorating morning in a cafeteria, a salesman arranges cakes in a window waiting for visitors. The guitarist does not break into drinking - the arranger observes the rhythm of the dance, the chased gait, driven by the confident hand of the car, introducing samples of police sirens, klaxons, ladies' heels to hear the everyday life of the city as a dance. This is life, it is bitter, but this is life.

The Pet Shop Boys in 30 years have never offered the comfort of a tale of afterlife or a Monte Carlo win. They do not even offer to yell with foolishness, “How beautiful this world is, look!” Their eyes are critical. Their hero is intellectually savvy: among the characters to whom the lines of their songs appeal are Harold Pinter ("Up Against It", 1996), Bernardo Bertolucci ("A Certain Je Ne Sais Qoui", 2012) and Karl Marx ("Love Is a Bourgeois Construct, 2013), and at the same time not a bluestocking at all, so as not to pick up a conversation about the tabloids in mid-sentence: “Like Liz before Betty, like She after Sean: first lost, then reborn” (“DJ Culture”). Actually, this erudition is the key to independent thinking of such a hero, and with him - stoicism. Pet Shop Boys observe the imperfections of society, from technical gadgets to political reshuffles, from the position of a person who is neat, collected, interested and at the same time equipped with that beautiful cog inherited from the animal world that pushes to stretch legs, straighten shoulders, gesticulate, pursue and run away, gather into a fist and make an impression. A clear dance rhythm is responsible for this cog, with which melodies are stitched, enriched with knowledge of musical culture from Purcell to the Yeltsin stage; the same "Che Guevara and Debussy put on a disco beat", as the artists themselves described their creed in their early "Left to My Own Devices" ("Left to My Own Devices", 1988).

Left to My Own Devices, 1985

Of course, the character and listener of the Pet Shop Boys is a feeling person, and he needs love: and without the need for love and sex, as Bernes sang, "there would be nothing here." Already on their first forty-five in the song “A Man Could Get Arrested” (1985), the guys showed how exhausting the soul is indecisive chatter, when you just need to collect your belongings and start living together: “How long are you going to sit here and chat with me? You have a lot of problems and a split personality. You need to consult a doctor before our love is tested. How can? So it won't take long to go to jail!"

Of course, the disco beat is primordially beautiful, like the clatter on the stairs of a kid who has just finished learning his lessons and rushed out into the street. When you just went hunting in a pub and "I've had enough of the booze and I've had enough of boxing - I want a lover" ("I Want a Lover", 1986) or even more so when "It's a chilly evening, I needed to have a couple of drinks and there you are, and I knew that I would love your love. Did you see that I'm ready? What was so noticeable? Simply, at some point, only the two of us were left. So don’t believe in fate after that - after all, she gave you to me like this ”(“ Did You See Me Coming? ”, 2009). Or when the Pet Shop Boys marvel at the moonlight-dancing trucker and his reliever in the 1995 song of the same name (“The Truck-Driver and His Mate”).

"Did You See Me Coming", 2009

Although the guys themselves adhere to that healthy and only correct position that people themselves choose to be happy (“Happiness Is an Option”, 1999), the world has always been and remains full of idiots who are frightened by the final happiness that has come. Such, having formed a couple, continue the search, which is doomed to remain empty, turning both the life of a loved one and one's own into hell. The Pet Shop Boys wrote their very first song in 1982 about the effects of this kind of behavior, but the album "Jealousy" ("Jealousy") came only 8 years later. The most dreary of feelings befits a majestic arrangement. The heroic man who, instead of spitting on an unnecessary lover, spends a sleepless night when a loved one does not call back, deserves fanfare. If you line up Pet Shop Boys songs by character types, then perhaps the most extensive gallery will be the gallery of such stoics, one of whom hopes that his beloved will leave his sexual Crusades(“I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore”, 1999), another - this problem, judging by the chart position, is especially relevant - suffers from a type who, when drunk, does not come off of him, but when sober, turns up his nose ("You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", 1999).

Of these songs, the Pet Shop Boys themselves - and this is a rare case where Tennant and Lowe agree - prefer "The Way It Used to Be" (2009) about an old carefree love that melted away because the roads parted, about the age-old melancholy of one and the hope to return everything to the other and the need to gather courage and still see: what remains of love? In this song, in some perfect doses and forms, anxiety, loss and determination meet - three pillars on which a person stands.

«The Way It Used to Be», 2009

After all, what is sad: all political intrigues, grimaces of social injustice, mistakes of loved ones, as the songs of the Pet Shop Boys show, can be waited out, they will pass, “it’s just the wind blew” (“Only the Wind”, 1990). Only, alas, the same can be said about any of our feelings, including love. The Pet Shop Boys have a few songs where the heroes end up at a funeral (Your Funny Uncle, 1989; Survivors, 1996), but perhaps the most programmatic piece of their whole approach is inspired by such a culturally vulgar event as the funeral of a princess. Diana.

«After the Event», 2009

Where all the venerable performers put an aesthetic heap, these two left a dance masterpiece for all time and a hymn of life completely devoid of blind pathos. The song is called “After the Event” (“After the event”, 2009), and it is about what, in fact, this world stands on, otherwise it would fall apart. He, the world, has been listening to these guys for 30 years, because, with benevolent curiosity, observing and reflecting all his changes and difficulties, they affirm the only true truth that: “Sometimes you can get so upset that you don’t hear laughter, otherwise and take it as a threat. But everything is different after, after the event: now you are already smiling, happy to be here.

The new Pet Shop Boys album "Super" will be released on April 1st. This is how one of the first songs sounds - "The Pop Kids".

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Biography, life story Pet Shop Boys

By a tragic coincidence, Pet Shop Boys have always been considered the long-lived analogue of Modern Talking, although in England Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant are treated with much more respect. All alternative bohemia are their friends, cult director Derek Jarman directed their videos, Johnny Marr from The Smiths plays guitar on their albums, their next disc is rumored to be produced by Brian Eno, and David Bowie and Blur give them songs for remixes. Such an elitist environment does not prevent the Pet Shop Boys' singles from constantly sticking around in the charts, and the "boys" themselves from rejecting the slightest attempts to make them postmodernists. But the duet is perceived perfectly at any level - both as an exquisite mockery and as a melodic disco with intelligent lyrics. The Pet Shop Boys formed in 1981 when music journalist Neil Tennant and architectural college student Chris Lowe met in a music store on King's Road. Neil was already 27, Chris was five years younger.

After several unsuccessful auditions, the famous disco producer from New York, Bobby Orlando, drew the attention of them. With him, the "boys" created their first single "West End Girls". This plastic did not have the slightest success, as well as the next one, Opportunities. However, the Pet Shop Boys managed to secure a contract with EMI, and, reworked by Stephen Hog ​​(who would later become famous for his collaborations with post-punks Siouxsie and James), the West End Girls version suddenly becomes a super hit, reaching number one in England, the States and half a dozen other countries. In 1986, the debut album "Please" was released, the next - probably their most famous song "It" s A Sin ", and they begin to talk about the Pet Shop Boys as one of the most interesting groups of the 80s. The duo brings pop "music a new image and opens up new, unknown facets of disco, which was already trodden along and across. As it turned out, dance music can be smart and even gloomy. Neil Tennant's detached, emotionless vocals, Chris Lowe's minimalist and hypnotic rhythms are only for the first the eyes seemed gray and colorless, but upon closer examination, they suddenly bloomed with all sorts of colors and dragged the listener into a very special world, from under the dead charm of which it was not so easy to escape. the achievements of their less successful (but more interesting) predecessors for a wide audience.In particular, the "melancholic disco for smart" o they valued their status as an alternative group too much to run for fame and money at MTU.

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The ambiguous image and catchy lyrics were also introduced by other Manchester natives The Smiths at the beginning of the decade, but Morrissey and Marr remained true to old-fashioned guitar music, so they were barred from the discotheques. Crossing the latest achievements of the British underground with the utmost commercialization, the Pet Shop Boys have achieved success in the charts, making themselves simultaneously the darlings of the alternative music press. Indeed, mystery is an integral part of the Pet Shop Boys image. How can such talented musicians play despicable disco? Why would a pop group write such ambiguous and ironic lyrics? Who the hell are they really? Maybe just "smart people who hate rock and roll" (literal quote from one of the songs)? In the late 80s, the Pet Shop Boys are experiencing a real heyday - everything that they touch turns to gold. Elvis Presley's old soulful hit "Always On My Mind" "boys" set out to make it as far from the original as possible - and a daring dance single was born that repeated the success of "West End Girls". The star of the 60s, Dusty Springfield, has long forgotten how a hit differs from a candelabra, but no one knows where her dug-out Pet Shop Boys wrote the song “What Have I done To Deserve It?” for the singer, which once again lifted Dusty to the top of the charts. A completely unexpected collaboration with Liza Minnelli results in a very unusual album for both Liza and the “boys” “Results”. IN different years they also collaborated with Tina Turner and Boy George.

One of the tracks on the "Actually" disc is recorded with Enio Morricone - few disco artists can boast such a stylistic diversity. But closer to the 90s, the disco fashion subsided, and it seemed that the Pet Shop Boys would share the fate of their colleagues on the hit parades of the 80s. They could go into techno, for the development of which they did a lot: “Sound Of Atom Splitting” and a remix of “It's All Right” from the album “Introspec-live” - an acid house classic, but, fortunately, they didn’t. Because that it turned out that they did not need to chase fashion - the Pet Shop Boys formed their own audience, which consisted not only of windy disco-goers. The 1990 disc "Behavior" turned out to be unexpectedly serious, in some ways even depressing. Only the song "So Hard" was a success comparable to their previous achievements, but this album showed the tremendous progress of Neil Tennant as a poet, and the music of "Behavior" turned out to be much more interesting and diverse than on previous albums.Summing up the decade, in 1991 the Pet Shop Boys released the collection "Discography ", the sales of which showed that interest in their music is still great. The album included another interesting cover version - this time the Pet Shop Boys decided to have some fun with the famous U2 hit "Where The Streets Have No Names".

Neil Tennant replaced the emotional anguish and pain for all the sufferers inherent in Bono with his bored indifferent vocals, to top it all, mixing the verses of the original with Andy Williams' frivolous song "Can" t Take My Eyes Off You ". The Pet Shop Boys tour is not even a rare event , but simply exceptional, so the advertising campaign of the records is based on spectacular video clips, on which the leading experts of this genre are involved.Moreover, for each album for Chris and Neil, a new image, costumes and hairstyles are developed. 1993's "Very": multicolored jumpsuits and fancy helmets The duo's record design is a topic for another discussion, but suffice it to say that for the last three projects, the boxes for the discs are specially made: orange for "Very", with a hologram for "Alternative", embossed - for "Bilingual" In the 90s, Pet Shop Boys, having remained, in fact, the only group of the previous decade, did not come out necks in circulation, may no longer care about commercial success, but they still play disco - they are the only ones. It is unlikely that now, on this basis, they can be branded as pop ephemera, and they endured the test of time with honor. The fresh hit of the Pet Shop Boys, sounding from the radio, is as familiar as the change of seasons.

IN last years the duo's creativity takes on new dimensions. The album “Electronic”, which appeared in 1991, was not at all a soundtrack to the famous Soviet television series, but a collaboration between New Order vocalist Bernie Sumner and The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. As it turned out, these musicians did not hold a grudge against the “boys” who took advantage of their ideas, but, on the contrary, retained the warmest attitude towards them: Neil Tennant’s vocals are featured on three songs, and Chris Lowe is also involved on several tracks. "Electronic" was hailed as one of the best records of the coming decade, and the Pet Shop Boys deserved their share of the credit. In 1995, the double CD “Alternative” was released, which collected 30 songs from the reverse sides of the Pet Shop Boys singles, and it turned out that they were hiding genuine masterpieces that were ahead of their time: here is the musical innovation (“I Get Exited”), and the most interesting texts ("Miserablism") and even a dance arrangement of the theme from the "Threepenny Opera" ("What Keeps Mankind Alive").

While recording b-sides, the Pet Shop Boys could not care about commercial success, and "Alternative" turned out to be stronger than any of their numbered album, and it is these songs, and not pompous hits, that will remain in the annals of pop music. In general, this technique, so fashionable in the 90s (putting on the reverse sides of singles not rubbish spoiled by the producer, but songs that are not inferior to the best hits) - it was the Pet Shop Boys that were put into use ten years ago. And in the mouthpiece of the British alternative, the newspaper "New Musical Express" somehow agreed that this is the main contribution of the duo to world culture. In the 90s, they tried to make the first remix, and they approached this problem with the same irony: when the brisk band Blur released the single "Girls & Boys", in which they rather tactlessly mocked the "boys", Chris and Neil were not offended, but rather , offered their version of this song, which can still be heard on the radio. Two years later, when David Bowie for once recorded the brutal and heavy composition "Hallo Spaceboy", the Pet Shop Boys did not lose their heads and made a dance version of this piece, which became David's biggest hit in the last ten years. The album "Bilingual" was released in 1996 and is deservedly considered the pinnacle of their work. Bilingual's music is hip and conservative at the same time - Chris and Neil managed to find the perfect balance of old and new.

The disc shows the whole range of moods, from euphoria (“Se A Vide E”) to fierce melancholy (“Discoteca”), and the entire palette of styles: from orthodox disco of the 80s (“Saturday Night Forever”) to Electricity - a completely experimental thing, which would have sounded unexpected on "Alternative" as well. The record shows a strong influence of Latin American music, and six songs feature Johnny Marr's guitar again. And now, the Moscow concert. This is not the first time the duet has been in Russia - back in 1992 they filmed a video clip for “Go West” on Red Square (the Soviet athletes in this video were portrayed by one New York gay club in full force), and already in 1998 they came to visit Brian Ino to Petersburg. The male choir on the 1997 single "A Red Letter Day" is the choir of the Moscow Academy of Music. The concert took place at Luzhniki - foreign guest performers rarely perform there: alternative groups shake the walls of Gorbushka, "living legends" sprinkle sand on the stage of the Palace of Congresses, which is completely unsuitable for such events. Ticket prices turned out to be divine: from 100 to 400 rubles, but there was no full house, although the stalls were extremely packed.

The audience gathered, although predictable, but nonetheless pleasant - middle class, students, bohemian youth. Or more simply - intelligent people. No marginals and juvenile drug addicts, whose ears immediately prior to the visit of the Pet Shop Boys were delighted by Exploited and Scooter, respectively. A lot of foreigners came - oddly enough, Pet Shop Boys rarely give live performances, and usually in small halls. The concert was delayed by almost an hour, during which the audience was lulled by viscous ambient. Finally, the lights went out and the Pet Shop Boys in blindingly white suits ran out onto the stage, followed by two black women in black, one portly, the other frail. The program started with one of the duo's most famous hits, "It" sa Sin. Maintaining their reputation as controversial and mysterious characters, something strange was done from their old hit Pet Shop Boys: not only did the sunny disco somehow imperceptibly change towards the end of the song darkest jungle, so in the middle the black woman, the fatter one, dragged on (she has an excellent voice) “I Will Survive”, the disco hit of the 70s that made Gloria Gaynor famous. we wrote the song with David Bowie a couple of years ago,” Neil Tennant announced, and “Hallo Spaceboy” sounded, and with Bowie’s vocal part, the full Afro-Englishwoman Mrs. Sylvia James coped quite well, and the other, who was fragile, naked, suddenly appeared. .. quite a muscular man.

The concert was generally rich in surprises: for example, the song "Rent" (already having rich history: Liza Minnelli recorded it in an orchestral arrangement by Angelo Badalamenti, and a year ago Neal sang it in a duet with Brett Anderson from Suede), the Pet Shop Boys performed ... acoustically, with one guitar. Modern Talking doesn't know how, that's for sure. Famous cover versions were also played: "Always On My Mind", which also began in acoustics, and "Where The Streets Have No Name", which met with a particularly warm reception from the public. Of the shortcomings of the concert, one can only note the not-best-tuned sound.

Pet Shop Boys have distinguished themselves by good language skills: if the Nazaret group has learned nothing in addition to “thank you” for six visits to us, then Neil Tennant also knows “thank you very much”, “goodbye” and even “I love you”. Despite the assurances of the organizers that the band prepared a special program for Russia, Pet Shop Boys played the same things as at the summer concerts in London and Turku (Finland), where the author of this text happened to visit. Moreover, not only the order of the songs coincided, but the entire production of the show as a whole. Having performed their new single "Somewhere" (an adaptation of the theme from the musical "West Side Story") at the end of the concert, the duo left, but they, of course, went for an encore - you can't leave Russia without singing "Go West", all the more that in the summer they closed their performances with this song. Hearing the chords of the popularly beloved composition, the whole stadium jumped up from their seats - the Pet Shop Boys left the stage in triumph. “Applause turning into a standing ovation. Shouts of "Hurrah!" Everybody get up” - something like this.

Discography: Please (1986) Actually (1987) Introspective (1988) Behavior (1990) Very (1993) Relentless (1993) Alternative (1995) Bilingual (1996) Nightlife (1999) Release (2002)

Until the fall of 1981, the paths of Neil and Chris did not intersect, and each of them lived his own life. Both of them were born into middle-class families, but despite this, they were very different families.

Neil Francis Tennant

Born July 10, 1954 in the UK, a suburb of Newcastle - the north of the country. The older sister is Susan. Two younger brothers - Simon and Philip. He studied at the monastery school of St. Cuthbert's Catholic Grammar School in Newcastle, studied history at the Polytechnic in London, worked as an editor at Marvel Comics and a journalist at Smash Hits.

Christopher Sean Lowe

Born October 4, 1959 in the UK, Blackpool. He studied at Arnold School and studied architecture at Liverpool University. He is a licensed architect, but did not work by profession.

Until the fall of 1981, the paths of Neil and Chris did not intersect, and each of them lived his own life. Both of them were born into middle-class families, but despite this, they were very different families. Neil started writing songs at a very early age and formed his first band, Dust, when he was 16 years old, after which he entered North London Polytechnic where he studied history and socialism. Then he changed several jobs - he was a book editor, worked at Marvel Comics until he became a journalist at Smash Hits. Chris followed in the footsteps of his family, which had musical roots. He learned to play the trombone and performed in a band called "One Under the Eight" that imitated the styles of the likes of Hello Dolly and Moon River. At 18, he went to study architecture at the University of Liverpool. But, one day, on August 19, 1981, in one of the music stores in London, namely on King Road, they noticed each other ...

Neil went to the store to buy some supplies for his synthesizer and noticed a guy who was "laughing a lot" and his name was Chris Lowe. Chris himself ended up in this store also by chance - at that time he passed the practice and erected a staircase not far from this store.

Chris recalls: "We were talking about emerging American pop music and we had such different ideas about music that we spontaneously decided to team up and invent something new!" But then, through the fault of Chris, everything suddenly burst! "Pet Shop Boys" almost didn't happen! Out of guilt towards his parents, who used their food to save money for Chris' expensive education, he returned to Liverpool to continue his studies. But Neil did not lag behind him: for 2 years, both sent song projects to each other by mail and made demo recordings during the holidays. They called themselves the "Pet Shop Boys" because the London friends Chris stayed with during his visits kept a pet shop. Finally, the big chance came with Neil's work in "Smash Hits". In August 1983 he had to fly to New York for an interview with Sting. Famous dance producer Bobby Orlando ("Divine", "Lisa Lisa", "Cult Jam"), a big idol of both "Pet Shop Boys", also lived there. Neil arranged a meeting with Bobby and talked to him for so long until Bobby agreed to release the single. April 1984 Chris and Neil recorded "West End Girls" in New York, which became an American club hit. The impulsive Neil immediately quit his magazine, Chris still successfully passed the exam.

In 1985 Chris moved to London. "That's when I finally decided to become a professional musician," says Chris. "Neil and I decided to re-record our US hit 'West End Girls' and release it in the UK." The idea turned out to be very successful, the song became "number one" on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Pet Shop Boys were named the best composers in Britain. After the success of the first single, Pet Shop Boys began to be invited to concerts in all countries of the world, but the guys were in no hurry to go on tour. "What kind of stupidity is it for a dance group to perform in a stadium? - say the Pets, - We play disco music, not rock and roll." Perhaps this explains the fact that in the entire history of the group she toured the UK only three times. Neil joked about this: "We would tour, it's just hard for us to find a good drummer."

Albums:

INTROSPECTIVE (1988)

BEHAVIOR (1990)

DISCOGRAPHY [compilation] (1991)

RELENTLESS (1993)

ALTERNATIVE (1995)

BILINGUAL (1996)

ORIGINALS (1998)