Pet Shop Boys

Lore & Background

Tennant and Lowe met on 19 August 1981 at the Chelsea Record Centre, a hi-fi shop on King's Road, when Tennant needed a connector for his synthesiser. A shared love of disco and electronic music, and of acts like Soft Cell and Kraftwerk, made them friends. They wrote first in Tennant's Chelsea flat, then from 1982 in a small Camden Town studio.

The name came from friends who worked in a pet shop in Ealing. In 1983 Tennant, then at Smash Hits, met producer Bobby Orlando in New York, who recorded early tracks including "West End Girls". After leaving Orlando in 1985, they signed with Parlophone.

Reader's Guide

A re-recorded "West End Girls" with producer Stephen Hague topped the UK chart in January 1986 and also reached number one in the United States. Their debut album Please started their habit of one-word album titles. "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", a duet with Dusty Springfield, revived her career. Later milestones include Introspective (1988), Very (1993), Bilingual (1996) and Nightlife (1999), plus a trilogy made with Stuart Price in the 2010s. They received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2009 and the NME Godlike Genius Award in 2017.

Did You Know?

• Billboard named them the top dance duo or group in 2016, with 11 number-one club hits.
• They sued Jonathan King over plagiarism claims about "It's a Sin" and donated the damages.
• Their video for "It's a Sin" was their first work with director Derek Jarman.
• They were given the Pop Pioneers award at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2024.