February 1986
On February 24th, ‘Love comes quickly’, which will remain one of their favourite songs, is released, reaching a disappointing #19 in the UK.
History
March 1986
On March 24th, their first LP ‘Please’ is released. “It’s so people can go into the record shop and say can I have the Pet Shop Boys album, please?”.
April 1986
‘West End girls’ reaches #1 in USA.
May 1986
On May 19th a new version of ‘Opportunities’ is released. “The point of that song is that the humour is black, it’s like a joke. The impression is that the people in it are not going to make any money”.
June 1986
The Pet Shop Boys announce, then cancel, a tour of Europe and America; the cost of using a theatre designer and playing fairly small venues proves prohibitive.
September 1986
On September 22nd, a re-recorded version of ‘Suburbia’, a song inspired by the Penelope Spheeris film of the same name about a group of disenchanted rebellious youths in suburban Los Angeles, is released. “It’s about a riot happening in some decaying suburb. It’s just the description of the riot happening and then the aftermath”. On the B‑side is the first version of ‘Paninaro’, named after an Italian youth cult and featuring a quote they both liked that Chris had said on a TV show: “I don’t like country and western, I don’t like rock music, I don’t like rockabilly… I don’t like much really, do I? But what I do like, I love passionately”.
November 1986
On November 17th ‘Disco’, an LP of disco remixes, is released.
On this day
1990
Behaviour is released.
2003
The Pet Shop Boys receive the World Arts Award in Hamburg, Germany. The award is presented to them by Mikail Gorbachev, whose daughter later tells them that she used to play their records as a teenager living in the Kremlin.
2006
Dallas, Texas, is tonight’s stop on the Fundamental Tour.
2008
The Boys continue work at the Xenomania studios on their next album. Today they record background vocals with a small chorus of at least a dozen singers, among them Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne.
2009
Having spent five days in Peru, Chris and Neil board a flight at the Lima Airport, ending their 2009 tour of South America. This was to have been the date of the Pet Shop Boys’ Pandemonium Tour concert in Caracas, Venezuela. Unfortunately, it had been canceled a little more than two weeks beforehand, with the promoter formally citing ‘razones de logística que afectan la realización del espectáculo’ (‘reasons of logistics that affect the actualization of the show’).
2010
The Pet Shop Boys are guests on Ken Bruce’s BBC2 radio show this morning for the ‘world radio premiere’ of their new single, ‘Together.’
2016
They perform this evening in Salt Lake City.
2018
To mark the forthcoming publication of his book One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, Neil takes part in a live onstage conversation, simulcast over the internet, with writer Michael Bracewell at Evolutionary Arts Hackney (EartH, formerly the Hackney Arts Centre).
- Facts collated by geowayne.com