Pet Shop Boys – Their 15 Best Songs
Is there a catalogue in British pop more rich with wit, intelligence, charm, and melodic excellence than the 40 year ongoing arc produced by Pet Shop Boys? Somehow utterly of-its-time yet also timeless, their Imperial run – to use Neil Tennant’s own phrase – is simply the pinnacle of a glorious set of Alpine-worthy peaks, ranging from those early game-changing 45s through to this year’s sparkling ‘Nonetheless’.
Taking control of London’s Royal Opera House this summer for a Greatest Hits run, Pet Shop Boys feel confident enough to embrace their past, while charting paths for the future. Together, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have fundamentally expanded the lexicon of British pop music, with multiple generations of synth-pop pretenders worshipping at their throne.
CLASH decided to sift through their lofty works, and name our 15 favourite Pet Shop Boys songs.
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‘West End Girls’
When I think of London, the first song that comes to mind is ‘West End Girls’. The music perfectly paints the hustle and bustle of the city streets with action on every corner as the bass line marches along with its glamorous strut.
One of the first times I visited London, my friend Feedy Frizzi took me on the tube and we travelled from the East side to the West side of the city singing ‘West End Girls’ on repeat having the best time surrounded by beautiful faces. We ended up in a pub knocking down tables with some West End Girls. (As picked by Desire)
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‘Rent’
It’s almost impossible to pick a Pet Shop Boys favourite, but there is something painfully beautiful about ‘Rent’, that grabbed us from the beginning many years ago. The person in the intriguing lyrics tries to convince herself (apparently Neil Tennant had a female narrator in mind) that she’s happy with being taken to Broadway restaurants and getting her rent paid, but the melancholy shines through especially in the phrase “look at my hopes, look at my dreams”.
It’s a timeless song, both irresistably catchy and emotionally resonant. Being such an inspirational tune, last year we recorded and released a cover version of it as a twelve-inch single. (As picked by Sally Shapiro)
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‘So Hard’
The years 1989 and 1990 marked a high-point for electronic pop – from the release of New Order’s ‘Technique’, through Erasure’s ‘Wild!’ to Depeche Mode’s ‘Violator’. Much as the Beach Boys, Beatles and Rolling Stones responded to each other’s work with each successive record, Pet Shop Boys took up their peers’ challenge with producer Harold Faltermeyer (Axel F).
The resulting album, ‘Behaviour’, was heralded in September 1990 by another of the duo’s innuendo-laden titles (see also ‘Love Comes Quickly’, ‘Did You See Me Coming?’); ‘So Hard’ features a porno sample, wicked analogue synth stabs and some of Neil Tennant’s most delicious lyrics, as he weighs up the price of monogamy. (Omer Ali)
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‘Somewhere’
The Boys had tackled Stephen Sondheim before – with Liza Minnelli, no less – and in 1997 they threw everything at this LGBTQ+ standard from musical West Side Story. It’s all obtuse samples (“When the riots stopped, the drugs started”, from movie Menace II Society), thumping bass, swirling strings and some very brassy brass; riding above the disco inferno, Tennant’s vocal is judiciously wistful. Somewhere provided the title for Pet Shop Boys’ first London summer residency – at the Savoy Theatre – a tradition that continued at the Royal Opera House this summer. In a time of dreary acoustic covers, this is where we need to be. (Omer Ali)
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‘After The Event’
A “typical day” turns sour, first with mocking threats, then news of a death. Amid a formidable catalogue of B-sides, the flip side to 2009’s ‘Did You See Me Coming?’ is my favourite. A delicate synth chime builds to an unexpected, if insistent, chorus of “Come on, come on”. I lived in central London when Princess Diana died and it perfectly evokes the forced hysteria of the time: “Misty in the rain / Flowers in their cellophane / Policemen intervening / Drama without meaning.” The song ends as it starts, so it’s possible to put it on repeat and relive the day forever. (Omer Ali)
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‘Suburbia’
One for those who lived in the towns based tantalisingly close to the bright lights of the cool city, but just that bit too far away. The samba percussion, keyboard-generated barks and brooding thud threaten one song before it explodes into something else altogether, gliding into the sky with a heavenly, sumptuous hook. Musically, Suburbia makes town life seem exciting, yet the lyrics tell the truth. The frantic middle-eight, ‘I only wanted something else to do but hang around,’ says it all. (Richard Bowes)
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‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’
Possibly one of Neil Tennant’s most emotive vocals, with his delivery needy for the verse but downtrodden in the chorus. He must have realised he needed to up his game when they somehow convinced Dusty Springfield to participate, who sprinkles majesty and glamour on to an already sparkling piece of music. The frail, insecure keyboard riff works well against the confident percussion, with each section adding something new to the mix. It could only be created in the 1980s, yet it’s timeless. (Richard Bowes)
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‘In The Night’
If, like me, you came of age in the 1980s, you’ll know ‘In The Night’ as the theme music from The Clothes Show. Originally released as the B-side of ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’, what made ‘In The Night’ so interesting wasn’t its white-hot 1980s discotheque-friendly presentation, but its erudite lyrics.
The song dealt with a group of French Nazi-era counterculture figures (les Zazous) that Tennant had read about in Paris In The Third Reich A History Of The German Occupation, 1940 – 1944 by David Pryce-Jones. Initially we observe these people as denizens of a alluringly decadent Parisian nightlife, but as the song progresses, Tennant becomes more cynical, suggesting that their relentless focus on love meant they turned a blind and complicit eye to the occupying Nazi’s brutality. “There’s a thin line between love and crime and collaboration,” he sings, scornfully, in the song’s final moments. (Mat Smith)
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‘Being Boring’
‘Being Boring’ was the second single from 1990’s ‘Behaviour’, and is viewed by Tennant as one of the duo’s best songs. Among the band’s most mature and introspective tracks, ‘Being Boring’ was inspired by a quote from Zelda Fitzgerald.
Presented as a semi-autobiographical story, all set to a crisp 808 beat and funky wah-wah guitar, the song’s three verses cover three distinct eras in Tennant’s life: carefree experiences as a child, his coming-of-age in the 1970s and finally his surprise and bewilderment at Pet Shop Boys’ success. Running through the song is an affectionate paean to a departed friend, lost to AIDS. The lines “All the people I was kissing / Some are here and some are missing,” take on an intense poignancy and sadness in the wake of the devastation that the disease caused among gay men in the 1980s. (Mat Smith)
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‘Love Is A Bourgeois Construct’
One of the more overtly political songs in their canon, there is much to love about the best song of their elder statesmen era. There is the title, the melody which comes via Michael Nyman and Henry Purcell, a brilliant Stuart Price production and a drawl lyric that is both cynical love song (‘you won’t find me with a bunch of roses / promising fidelity/ it’s a blatant fallacy’) and a throwback to Tennant’s time as a history student in the 1970s (‘I’ve been hanging out with various riff raff/ somewhere on the Goldhawk Road’). Elsewhere it manages to namecheck both Karl Marx and Tony Benn. What more do you want in a pop song? (John Williamson)
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‘It’s A Sin’
The Pet Shop Boys classic eighties banger received a huge surge in streams after the broadcast of the Channel 4 series with the same name, and on its initial release heralded the band’s ‘imperial phase’.
A grand synth-pop anthem fused with disco-theatrics, the 1987 number-one single deplored the oppressive view that sex was inherently sinful. The lyrics delve into Neil Tennant’s viewpoints of Catholicism (particularly as a school boy) “So, I look back upon my life / Forever with a sense of shame / I’ve always been the one to blame” which incensed Neil’s previous school teacher who felt it was an ‘unfair picture’ of Neil’s school days.
The song’s video, a sombre tale of guilt and punishment featuring the seven deadly sins, was the first time the Pet Shop Boys worked with Derek Jarman. (Emma Harrison)
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‘Go West’
Quite possibly, one of the best cover versions of all time? You decide! It was never intended as a single, merely as a cover for a gig at the Hacienda. ‘Go West’, a rousing anthemic song about an idealistic, gay utopia captured the attention of the Pet Shop Boys fans and peaked at number two in the UK Charts via the duo’s fifth studio album, ‘Very’.
With its abundance of pillowy synths and the triumphant refrain ‘together!’ this iconic cover where the duo added extra bridging material and additional new lyrics breathed a whole new life into the Village People’s original and remains a fan favourite at their live performances.
As Chris Lowe says “Who would have thought that an obscure Village People song covered by Pet Shop Boys would become the song of football?” says Chris. “It’s fantastic. I think it’s our greatest achievement.” (Emma Harrison)
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‘Domino Dancing’
Perhaps this Latin-infused dance-pop track was a smidge ahead of its time for the Pet Shop Boys? ‘Domino Dancing’ failed to reach the dizzy heights of number one after an impressive period of success.
It seemed that the record-buying public’s reception to the duo’s new latin sound was not as positive as the duo would have liked and marked the end of the band’s ‘imperial phase’ of number one hits. It was at heart, still a synth-pop song which used the metaphor of dominos to tell the story of the narrator’s jealousy of the number of partners his beloved has had.
‘Domino Dancing’ and the band’s follow-up single ‘Left to My Own Devices’ from ‘Introspective’ was almost a precursor to the melancholy edge of ‘Behaviour’ which followed in 1990. (Emma Harrison)
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‘You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk’
Picture a Pet Shop Boys song: you’re probably envisioning crisp electronics, club flourishes, and a vocal of quiet flamboyance. Yet the duo’s catalogue is replete with experiments, aesthetic dalliances, and risk-taking, often moving far beyond their central template.
Take 1999’s ‘You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk’ with its minimalist palette, lovelorn lyric, and – shock horror – pedal steel guitar. Sonically, it’s reminiscent of everything from Brian Eno’s countrified Apollo soundtrack to The KLF’s Tammy Wynette crossover – in reality, it’s pure, distilled Pet Shop Boys. And a heartbreaker, to boot. (Robin Murray)
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‘Feel’
There’s a temptation with these lists to look back, and to disregard the current work that iconic artists are producing. While Pet Shop Boys have long left their Imperial arc behind, that doesn’t mean their current work is settling on its haunches – in truth, the past decade or so has resulted in work that would shame their peers (and much younger synth-pop pretenders) with its wit, daring, and sonic excellence.
‘Feel’ is their newest single – drawn from 15th studio album ‘Nonetheless’, it was given a cute standalone bundle on streaming, including two remixes, a bonus song, and a demo.
Forever haunted by past glories, Pet Shop Boys have learned to embrace it. Melting together house aspects with delicious strings, it’s a simple paean to love: “you make me feel like nobody else can / I would never let you down…” A testimony to a life absorbed in pop music, it’s wonderful subtle, but all the better for it. (Robin Murray)
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