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.”
Chris and Neil complete their work on ‘Positive Role Model’ as a ‘Pet Shop Boys track.’ All subsequent work they do on the song is as part of Closer to Heaven.
The Boys work in the studio on ‘Luna Park’; they decide to ‘strip it down’ somewhat, making it more ‘electronic’ than it had been previously.
They perform in Atlanta, Georgia.
Neil and Chris had been scheduled to perform in Bucharest today, but that concert has been postponed so that they could attend the North London funeral of their longtime friend and assistant Dainton Connell, killed in a Moscow automobile accident two weeks before.
Jonathan Harvey visits the Boys in the studio to discuss their upcoming Billie Trix stage show, Musik.
Back in London following the conclusion of their Unity Tour, Neil and Chris attend a performance at Wilton’s Music Hall of the stage show Only an Octave Apart starring Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Ross Costanzo. While there they ‘bump into’ Marc Almond, also in attendance.
Neil attends the opening night of a revival of the famed musical Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre in London. After the show, he goes backstage to congratulate Jake Shears for what Neil describes as his ‘triumphant opening-night performance’ in the role of the MC.