History

The Pet Shop Boys remix of “Hooked On Radiation”, a single by Atomizer (Fil OK and Johnny Slut, who run London’s premiere electroclash night Nag Nag Nag) is released in a limited edition of 500 copies on the Pet Shop Boys’ Olde English Vinyl label. It is subsequently re-released on International DJ Gigolo records. “That’s enough for me,” says Chris. “We’ve had a record on Bobby O’s label and one on Gigolo and that’s enough really.”

The Pet Shop Boys’ second Kiki Kokova record, a cover of Donna Summer’s “Love To Love You, Baby”, is also released as a limited edition of 500 copies on the Pet Shop Boys’ Lucky Kunst label. It is the second Kiki Kokova orgasm in an ongoing series. (Sam Taylor Wood sung the lyric four or five times but performed this latest orgasm only once. “We’re kind of used to it now,” says Neil.) 

On June 2 the Pet Shop Boys remix of Yoko Ono’s “Walking On Thin Ice” is released, along with remixes by Danny Tenaglia, Felix Da Housecat and FKEK . It reaches number one in the American Billboard Club Play chart. 

On September 7 the Pet Shop Boys headline the Rock’n’Coke Festival in Turkey, wearing one-off glam outfits made especially for the occasion. 

On October 23 the Pet Shop Boys are presented with the World Arts Award 2003 by former Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, in Hamburg “for their extraordinary dedication to art, their social engagement and their unique contribution to popular music as well as their overall patronage of the arts.” In his acceptance speech, Neil quotes Jimi Hendrix: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Gorbachev’s daughter tells them afterwards that she used to play their music when she was growing up in the Kremlin.

On November 17 the Pet Shop Boys release a new single, “Miracles”. It is a song written with English dance producer Adam F and his associate Dan Fresh. “We had this idea of a kind of record to make, which was to get a hip hop producer but then to use electro-clash sounds with them,” says Neil. “It’s a love song. It’s about how, when you’re in love with someone, they have a kind of magic and they seem to transform everything: ‘Thunder is silent before you…roses bloom more to adore you’.” One of the extra tracks on the CD is called “We’re the Pet Shop Boys”, a song recently written and recorded by the New York artist My Robot Friend which the Pet Shop Boys like enough to cover. 

On November 24, PopArt: The Hits is released. It includes all of the Pet Shop Boys hit singles over two CDs, including the just-released “Miracles” and one further new song, “Flamboyant”. They liked the title PopArt because, says Neil, “I think it explains what we are. We’re pop music…” “…with some art pretensions,” chips in Chris. “With art influences,” suggests Neil. On the sleeve, the word “Pop” takes its orange pattern from the “Can you forgive her?” pointy hats and the word “Art” its grey stripes from Chris’s “Suburbia” sunglasses. “So you have the Eighties and Nineties,” says Neil. Initial copies include a third CD of some of the Pet Shop Boys’ favourite dance remixes of their songs, including mixes by Moby, Sasha, Rollo, Shep Pettibone, Love To Infinity, Peter Rauhoffer and David Morales. A companion PopArt DVD is released on the same day. 

On March 17^th, ‘A Red Letter Day’ is released as a single. It was a song which began when the Pet Shop Boys were experimenting with taking the chord changes from famous pieces of classical music (in this case Beethoven’s Song Of Joy) and putting them to a 4/4 beat, and it features the choir of the Choral Academy of Moscow. “It’s about waiting for someone to tell you they love you”, says Neil. The seven-inch version is a new mix, using elements from a Motiv 8 remix of the song, and the Pet Shop Boys are also particularly taken with the hypnotic ‘Trouser Enthusiasts Autoerotic Decapitation mix’.

On June 4^th, the Pet Shop Boys begin a residency, ‘Somewhere’, at London’s Savoy Theatre, staged in collaboration with the artist Sam Taylor-Wood.

On June 23 the Pet Shop Boys release a new single, a version of “Somewhere” from West Side Story. “Because we like it,” Neil explains.