On March 19 two books by Chris Heath – Literally from 1990, and Pet Shop Boys versus America from 1993 – were reissued by the Penguin imprint Cornerstone, completely redesigned by Farrow design, and new introductions and afterwords written by the Pet Shop Boys and Chris Heath.
On April 21, Discovery, the film of the Pet Shop Boys 1994 South American tour – “the tour I enjoyed the most,” Chris notes – is released on DVD, accompanied by the release for the first time of a CD of their performance.
On May 7, a new Pet Shop Boys song, the ten-minute “Cricket wife”, is released on CD (accompanied by “West End girls (New lockdown version)”) with the periodical Annually 2021. “Cricket wife”, written during lockdown, began as an extended piece of music created by Chris. “My mum asked me if I would write a piece of classical music for her,” he explains. “I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got nothing else better to do.’ ‘Classical’ in inverted commas, obviously – I’m no classical composer. In the style of classical music.” When Neil received it, it struck him that it might fit a poem he had written some years before. “It’s really about my parents,” he says. “My father played cricket for many years.”
On December 26, the Pet Shop Boys host a three-hour radio show, Pet Shop Boys, Takeover, on BBC Radio 2 between 9pm and midnight, playing a selection of favourite songs; a broadcast also billed by Radio 2 as “Neil and Chris’s Unpredictable Party Playlist”. (The show has been pre-recorded on the afternoon of December 13.) The Pet Shop Boys have recorded five new jingles for the show, titled “Takeover”, “Strings”, “Beautiful”, “Boxing Day” and “Electric”, and introduce a joyously eclectic selection of music, including records by Matt Monro, Alcazar, Paul Weller (their recent remix of his song “Cosmic Fringes”), Gloria Ann Taylor, Eric Prydz, Françoise Hardy and The 1975. “We’ve only ever done radio when we can play records that we want,” says Chris. “I love doing radio. There’s something very satisfying about broadcasting to the nation.”
The Pet Shop Boys perform ‘Can You Forgive Her?’ on Top of the Pops. Wearing the same costumes and employing some of the props used in the song’s video, they turn in one of the most surreal performances ever to grace the TOTP stage.
Chris and Neil settle on the final running order of the songs on Bilingual—though they later conclude (too late) that they should have stuck with a previous order.
The Boys kick off their Pandemonium Tour with a performance this evening in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Still in Manchester for their string of shows with Take That, Neil and Chris take some time today to tour the set of the popular British soap opera Coronation Street.
Kicking off the Summer 2017 leg of their Super Tour, and capping off the city’s week of Gay Pride festivities, the Pet Shop Boys perform this evening in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.
They resume work on the track ‘Beautiful Laundrette’ and begin ‘Night Sings (Popa’s Theme).’
Chris composes music for a new song that will soon become ‘Dancing Star.’
This evening they perform at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart, Germany. Earlier in the day at their hotel, just after lunch, Neil runs into Till Lindemann, the lead singer of Rammstein, who are also performing in Stuttgart that evening. ‘We had quite a chat,’ Neil later says.