Doctor Who Vs. Pet Shop Boys

This post combines my two greatest creative influences: the

British institutions that are Doctor Who and Pet Shop Boys.

For the uninitiated, the Wikipedia entry for the Pet Shop Boys describes them as

"an English electronic dance music duo [formed in London in 1982, and originally called West End], consisting of Neil Tennant [b. 1954], who provides main 

vocals and Chris Lowe [b. 1959] on keyboards." 
One of the world's best-selling music artists, Pet Shop Boys have sold over 100 million records worldwide, and are listed as the most successful duo in UK music history. Three times Brit Award winners and six-times Grammy nominees, since 1985 they have achieved forty-two Top 30 singles and twenty-two Top 10 hits in the UK chart, including four number ones: West End Girls, It's a Sin, Always On My Mind, and Heart. At the 2009 Brit Awards, Pet Shop Boys received the Outstanding Contribution to Music.

This month, the duo released their first single for three years. Dreamland,

a duet with Olly Alexander (of Years & Years), is the intended title track of

their forthcoming album, to be released next January. PSB headlined the

recent Live in Hyde Park festival, and the band also announced a new 

worldwide arena tour for 2020 - Dreamworld will celebrate their greatest

 hits. These two icons of British culture are connected by these sixteen 

facts:

• in the late 1980's, a young Scottish drama student called David John McDonald adopted the stage name of David Tennant, after PSB front- man Neil Tennant
• their 1988 film, It Couldn't Happen Here, starred Gareth Hunt (Arak in Planet of the Spiders), Barbara Windsor (given a cameo in Army of Ghosts), extra Chris Chering (Tetrap in Time and the Rani, and Skin- head in Silver Nemesis), and Simon Archer (lighting cameraman) was later the cinematographer on The Lodger
• comic actors, David Walliams and Matt Lucas (both longtime Petheads and dedicated Whovians) appeared in the video for I'm With Stupid (2006)
• Frances Barber (who played Madame Kovarian in Series Six) starred in the PSB's 2001 stage musical, Closer to Heaven as Billie Trix, a role reprised for Musik (2019) - Concrete (2006) included her live version of Friendly Fire
• Tennant provided backing vocals on Robbie Williams' 1998 single, No Regrets with Neil Hannon, who later sang Love Don't Roam for The Runaway Bride, and performed Song For Ten on the first Doctor Who OST album (2006)
• former PSB manager Tom Watkins also worked with Billie Piper during her pop career
• the character of Elton Pope in Love & Monsters was named after Elton John, who recorded a cover version of In Private with Tennant for Fundamentalism (2006)
• Tennant and Lowe have collaborated with many other musicians, including Kylie Minogue, who played Astrid Peth in Voyage of the Damned
• the PSB revived the career of Dusty Springfield with the release of the single, What Have I Done to Deserve This? in 1987, leading to her PSB-produced album, Reputation in 1990 - the number one hit record, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (1966), was heard in The Rebel Flesh, and Rory remarked that his mum was a fan of Dusty (along with Wilf Mott)
• Phil Oakey also dueted with Tennant (on Yes Etc. with This Used to be the Future), his former band, the Human League, recorded a tribute B-side track entitled Tom Baker in 1981
• Sir Ian McKellern (the voice of the Great Intelligence in The Snowmen) starred as a vampire in the video for Heart (1988)
• Ron Moody appeared as the Judge in the video for It's a Sin (1987), and he later voiced the Duke of Wellington for Big Finish's Other Lives (2005)
• the duo wrote I'm Not Scared for Eighth Wonder's vocalist Patsy Kensit in 1988 - she later voiced Mercenary for Kingdom of Lies (2018)
• Joanna Lumley starred in the video for Absolutely Fabulous (1994) and was later seen as the first female incarnation of the Doctor in The Curse of the Fatal Death
• Bettrys Jones, a dancer in the video for I'm With Stupid, voiced Judith for Black Thursday (2019)

Pet Shop Boys: 'Electric'

Details of the Pet Shop Boys new album were revealed today on the duo's official website. Electric will be released worldwide on July 15th, and is the first to appear on their own x2 label via Kobalt. Recorded in London, Berlin and Los Angeles, and produced by Stuart Price, Electric features eight new tracks and a cover version of Bruce Springstein's The Last To Die, whilst singer and rapper, Example performs on Thursday. 

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe commented that the new work - their twelfth studio album - is a response to the reflective nature of previous release, Elysium, and Electric is "pretty banging!"

The album - with artwork (shown here) again by Farrow - opens with the new single, Axis, and the full listing is:

1. Axis
2. Bolshy
3. Love Is A Bourgeois Construct
4. Flourescent
5. Inside A Dream
6. The Last To Die
7. Shouting In The Evening
8. Thursday
9. Vocal

Pet Shop Boys News

Tickets are now on sale for performances of The Most Incredible Thing, a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. This new ballet (choreographed by Javier De Fruto) has original music by Messrs Tennant and Lowe. The first run at Sadler's Wells in London is from March 17-26 2011. Follow this link http://http://www.sadlerswells.com/standalonevideo.php? for a video about the ballet's inception, and a music demo. A double CD produced by the PSB and Sven Helbig, and a world tour are planned for next year.

The Performing Rights Society have organised an auction of handwritten lyrics by some of the UK's best songwriters and composers, including Paul McCartney and Gary Barlow. All proceeds will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust, and Neil Tennant has written the lyrics to It's a Sin, Being Boring, and Your Funny Uncle, in a leather-bound notebook (pictured above), which will be sold at Bonham's in London this Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Boy's latest single, Together, only peaked at number 58 in the UK chart.

Renaissance of the Pet Shop Boys

2009 turned out to be a year of consolidation for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. At the BRITS in February they collected a well-earned Outstanding Contribution to Music Award. A month later saw the release of Yes, their best-selling album in 13 years, then in the summer they launched a worldwide stadium tour.

They could well ask What Have I Done To Deserve This? After 25 years of mixed fortune, the Pet Shop Boys are most definately worthy of such accolades.

Since West End Girls reached No. 1 (the first of 4 in the UK) in 1985, Messrs Tennant and Lowe have secured 43 Top 40 hits, and sold over 100 million records. The Pet Shop Boys are the most successful duo in UK music history, and the biggest British act on the US Dance Chart with 10 number 1's there. Next month, the Boys release Ultimate, their 17th album, and 56th single, Together.

Yes is the 10th studio album, and spawned 3 singles (Beautiful People was only issued in Germany). Personally, this is probably my favourite Pet Shop Boys album, the best songs being Did You See Me Coming? and should-have-been-a-single Pandemonium. For me, track 2, All Over The World (with it's brilliant Tchaikovsky sampling), typifies everything the Boys are about: this is a joyous celebration of their global appeal.

The 14-month Pandemonium tour took in 88 performances in 31 countries, and I was lucky enough to attend the Liverpool and Manchester dates. The London show at the O2 arena last December was filmed, and released on DVD this year.

And the greatest single of all time is... Being Boring!

Yes, according to the Guardian’s Music Blog Being Boring by the Pet Shop Boys is the greatest single of all time. “No one thought that when it came out” admits Neil Tennant himself. BB only peaked at number 20 in the UK chart of November 1990.

The Guardian is right in saying that this attempt at emulating the Stock Aitken & Waterman formula actually results in a mature and panoramic song. Key to it’s many themes for me, BB is indeed “about growing up” and I love the typically ironic title, since the Boys are usually perceived as “boring”. Although melancholic, the PSB have never seemed so hedonistic.

But greatest single ever? As a Pethead since Day 1 I’m biased, although I wouldn’t even consider BB to be the Boys best work. Some YouTube commentators insist that Jealousy is their best song, and I tend to agree that it’s amazing classical flourishes are grander.Personally, I prefer the (rather pretentious) Shakespearean intro of the Extended Mix of Jealousy to the hand-written prologue of BB. Here, Tennant delivers a line from Othello:

“Not poppy nor mandragora/Nor all the drowsy syrups of the east/Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep/Which thou owedst yesterday”.

The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers comments in A Life in Pop (DVD, 2006) that BB is a modern version of the Beatles' In My Life. Praise indeed. Apparently MTV didn't like the video for BB, because it was made in black and white, and it didn't really feature the artists. However, this fan-favourite (directed by Bruce Weber) is now regarded as a masterpiece.

My own favourite PSB track has to be the first of their collaborations with Dusty Springfield, What Have I Done to Deserve This? Released in August 1987, this single reached No. 2 in both the UK and the US.