February 1986
On February 24th, ‘Love comes quickly’, which will remain one of their favourite songs, is released, reaching a disappointing #19 in the UK.
History
March 1986
On March 24th, their first LP ‘Please’ is released. “It’s so people can go into the record shop and say can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, please?”.
April 1986
‘West End girls’ reaches #1 in USA.
May 1986
On May 19th a new version of ‘Opportunities’ is released. “The point of that song is that the humour is black, it’s like a joke. The impression is that the people in it are not going to make any money”.
June 1986
The Pet Shop Boys announce, then cancel, a tour of Europe and America; the cost of using a theatre designer and playing fairly small venues proves prohibitive.
September 1986
On September 22nd, a re-recorded version of ‘Suburbia’, a song inspired by the Penelope Spheeris film of the same name about a group of disenchanted rebellious youths in suburban Los Angeles, is released. “It’s about a riot happening in some decaying suburb. It’s just the description of the riot happening and then the aftermath”. On the B‑side is the first version of ‘Paninaro’, named after an Italian youth cult and featuring a quote they both liked that Chris had said on a TV show: “I don’t like country and western, I don’t like rock music, I don’t like rockabilly… I don’t like much really, do I? But what I do like, I love passionately”.
November 1986
On November 17th ‘Disco’, an LP of disco remixes, is released.
On this day
1999
Getting together again with Liza Minnelli roughly a decade after working on Results, Chris and Neil watch the BRITS Awards on TV with her at Sarm West Studios, followed by dinner.
2005
They attend the NME Awards to present the ‘Godlike Genius’ award to New Order.
2008
Neil and Chris attend the Berlin International Film Festival, where they watch the documentary If One Thing Matters, which concerns the photographer/artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who had created their video for ‘Home and Dry.’ In fact, a good deal of the film, in which the Boys appear, concerns the making of that video.
2009
Chris and Neil attend an orchestral concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, during which a piece titled Stakes ‘n’ Chips is performed for the first time. This work is a ‘random composition’ made up of one-minute segments contributed by twelve different composers, of whom the Pet Shop Boys were one. The Tennant-Lowe section is titled ‘Particle.’
2010
Two PSB TV appearances this evening: on BBC1’s The One Show and on CNN International’s Connect the World.
2012
Indie guitarist Adam Tressler is in an L.A. studio with the Pet Shop Boys, recording tracks for their next album (soon to be dubbed Elysium).
- Facts collated by geowayne.com