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’ film It Couldn’t Happen Here premiers in London to mixed reviews.
PSB performs in Brighton, U.K.
They perform at the Volt Festival in Sopron, Hungary.
2008: Chris and Neil take part in a photo shoot, pictures from which will later appear in the Autumn 2008 issue of the U.K. magazine Pop.
One of the ‘great dames’ of British pop music, Shirley Bassey, is reportedly in a London studio today recording a new Tennant-Lowe song, ‘The Performance of My Life.’ Meanwhile, the Boys are themselves performing this evening in Madrid.
Four years to the day following a previous festival performance in Hungary, our musical heroes are back in that country as the headliners of the first night of the Balaton Sound Festival.
Although the Boys themselves aren’t present, principal filming takes place today for the ‘Winner’ music video at York Hall in the Bethnal Green district of London. A number of fans participate as extras.
Chris and Neil serve for two hours as guest hosts on Iggy Pop’s BBC Radio 6 show, during which they offer the world premiere of the new Carl Craig remix of ‘Inner Sanctum.’
In Spain for the first of two consecutive shows in that nation, the Boys perform at the Cruïlla Summer Festival in Barcelona.
Using a title suggested by Chris, Neil writes and sings the lyrics for ‘No Boundaries.’