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 ‘Love Comes Quickly’ and ‘West End Girls’ at the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles.
‘It’s a Sin’ debuts on the U.S. singles chart, beginning a 19-week run during which it peaks at #9.
PSB’s 7‑inch remix of the Bloodhound Gang’s ‘Mope’ is released.
Tennant & Lowe’s score for Battleship Potemkin is released on CD. On the same day, the Potemkin ‘mini-tour’ of Germany concludes with a performance in Hamburg.
PSB continue their Fundamental Tour with a concert in Barcelona.
The Boys perform at the House of Blues in Boston.
Chris and Neil perform a special live show in Berlin to celebrate the launch of their new album Elysium, during which most of its songs get their live debut. On this same day, Japan becomes the first country where the album is actually released.
They perform at Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium.
The Pet Shop Boys deliver the first of two consecutive nights’ performances in Dublin, Ireland.
Neil attends Rufus Wainwright’s two BBC Proms concerts these evening, during which he performs his classic albums Want One and Want Two in their entirety with the BBC Concert Orchestra.
A special centenary screening of Battleship Potemkin, complete with the Tennant-Lowe score, appears on a double bill this evening with It Couldn’t Happen Here at BFI Southbank in London. During an onstage Q&A session, Neil reveals that he and Chris have been in the studio working on a new recording of A Man from the Future with the Manchester Camerata and narrator Juliet Stevenson.