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 Boys spend the afternoon with Derek Jarman, making plans for filming their upcoming show at Wembley.
Neil attends an AIDS-charity concert headlined by the band Suede in Clapham, seated in a private box with Derek Jarman and Jon Savage.
Neil is sighted at Madonna’s ‘Drowned World Tour’ concert at London’s Earls Court Arena.
The Boys perform in Manchester, U.K.
The Pet Shop Boys re-sign with Parlophone/EMI, their record label since 1985.
They perform at the ‘T in the Park’ festival near Kinross, Scotland.
The Take That/PSB tour moves to the European continent, the first such show taking place this evening in Milan.
Electric is released.
They bring their Electric Tour to Liepāja, Latvia.
Today sees the debut airing of the BBC Radio 4 documentary The House of the Windy City – Dance Music’s Forgotten Heroes, to which the Pet Shop Boys have contributed. The documentary covers the development and rise in Chicago of house music, which became arguably the pop world’s most pervasive and influential style of dance music of the ‘post-disco’ era.
Despite coughing from a cold, Neil works all day in the studio with Chris on the song ‘Hoping for a Miracle,’ based on a piano demo composed by Chris while on holiday in Le Touquet, France.
At the offices of Mark Farrow, the Boys discuss the artwork for the ‘Dreamland’ single and its parent album, Hotspot.