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History

April 2023

On April 14, a new Pet Shop Boys’ EP, Lost, is released digitally and as part of the latest edition of the Pet Shop Boys periodical, Annually 2023. Lost was planned as a four track EP of songs that were originally demoed in 2015 for Super though now, in some cases, seemly newly relevant. Its title — taken from the first song, “The lost room”, inspired by a film about military school bullying and written in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Crimea — “also seems,” says Neil, “to represent a sort of larger, philosophical or political point, where there’ve been times recently where the world feels a bit lost in terms of the direction it’s going in.” This sense is further amplified by the last-minute addition of a fifth song, a more recent composition “Living in the past”, which the Pet Shop Boys had posted on social media two months earlier in rough demo form, accompanied by a video in which Vladimir Putin appeared to shapeshift into Joseph Stalin. 

Lost

June 2023

On June 16, a new Pet Shop Boys compilation, Smash, presenting 55 Pet Shop Boys’ singles from the years 1985 to 2020 in chronological order, is released. The title was Chris’s. “I was thinking of the artist Roy Lichtenstein,” says Chris. “It seemed very Roy Lichtenstein: Pow! Wham! Smash! And there’s also, ‘It’s a smash!’ – that’s what people used to say about singles. Also, there is the connection with Neil and Smash Hits.” Its sleeve is a combined, distorted version of previous Pet Shop Boys’ sleeves. “Listening through, I felt quite proud of the whole thing,” says Neil. “This astonishing number of singles over such long period of time. And I think the last CD is really good. You sort of imagine a moment where you might think, ‘this is all a bit dodgy now’, but in my opinion that doesn’t happen.” 

SMASH – The Singles 1985-2020

On this day

1988

The Pet Shop Boys’ film It Couldn’t Happen Here premiers in London to mixed reviews.

2002

PSB performs in Brighton, U.K.

2006

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.

2009

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.

2010

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.

2012

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.

2016

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.’

2017

In Spain for the first of two consecutive shows in that nation, the Boys perform at the Cruïlla Summer Festival in Barcelona.

2019

Using a title suggested by Chris, Neil writes and sings the lyrics for ‘No Boundaries.’