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 are recording at Axis Studios, located above Studio 54 in New York City.
They perform at this year’s Roskilde Festival in Denmark.
This is the first of two consecutive nights’ PSB concerts at the Tower of London.
The Pandemonium Tour comes to Stockholm. After the show, the Swedish duo West End Girls meet backstage with Chris and Neil.
The second of the Boys’ two nights opening for Take That in Birmingham.
Comedian David Walliams—known as a dedicated PSB fan—records track-by-track audio commentary with Neil and Chris at London’s Sarm Studios for their soon-to-be-released album Elysium.
They perform this evening in Mainz, Germany.
At Cardiff Castle, the Boys rehearse for their upcoming guest appearance at the following evening’s Glastonbury show by The Killers. The uncomfortably high temperature leads Chris later to describe it as ‘the hottest soundcheck of all time.’
They wind up the 2023 U.K. leg of their Dreamworld Tour with an appearance at the Eden Project in Cornwall.
They perform in Mannheim, Germany.