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.”
Future Smiths/Electronic guitarist and frequent PSB collaborator John Maher—better known as Johnny Marr—is born in Manchester, U.K.
The Pet Shop Boys sign a five-year management contract with Tom Watkins of Massive Management.
The Boys perform at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Neil and Chris write an unidentified song with Robbie Williams.
Continuing the promotional activities related to the new PSB hits collection Ultimate, Neil is featured on Matt Everitt’s BBC6 radio show The First Time. The music programmed for the show includes not only several PSB numbers but also tracks by other artists that have influenced them or otherwise played a role in their history, including (among others) the Beatles’ ‘Fool on the Hill,’ the Incredible String Band’s ‘October Song,’ the Flirts’ ‘Passion,’ Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love,’ and, perhaps most surprisingly, Isao Tomita’s electronic rendition of Debussy’s ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.’
The Boys are in Austin, the capital city of Texas, in anticipation of their Super Tour show there the following night. The Pretenders also happen to be in town, so Chris and Neil attend their performance this evening (‘Brilliant concert,’ as Neil later enthuses on their website) and visit with Chrissie Hynde afterward.
A previously unreleased ‘short version’ of the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘The Way Through the Woods’ is released today on the various-artists digital album Emmi Aid, which is dedicated to the preservation of the endangered Emmauswald (Emmaus Forest) near Berlin. A video for the song is also released on YouTube.