We are very sad to hear that the legendary Frankie Knuckles has died. The word “legendary” is rather overused these days, but Frankie Knuckles was a true dance legend and a pioneer of house music. We were honoured to work with him in 1988 when he did his brilliant dark mix of “I want a dog”. It was so exciting to drive out to Jersey City to hear this mix for the first time in his studio and then drive back to New York with the mix on repeat. We were thrilled with it and included it on our album, Introspective. In 1990 Frankie came over to London to play at Chris’s birthday party at Brixton Academy and enthralled the crowd with his brilliant set. In the early days, House music was referred to as “Chicago House” after the city where it was invented — it was great to visit the city last year and see that a street had been named after the music’s inventor: Frankie Knuckles Way. Love and respect forever. xx
Pet Shop Boys will be headlining one of the stages at the Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a “Dreamworld” show on Saturday, August 9th 2025.
Recent Pet Texts
We visited the John Rylands Library in Manchester yesterday and saw the fascinating “Secret Public” exhibition which examines “the profound influence of LGBTQ performers, artists and activists on mainstream pop culture” and includes Neil’s original manuscripts of the lyrics for “West End girls” and “It’s a sin”. Highly recommended. Full details at the link below.
To accompany the release of Mark Springer’s “Sleep of Reason” album, which features Neil on vocals, a video for the opening track, “Phantoms and Monsters”, has been created by John Maybury and Daniel Goddard with footage from their forthcoming film “Confessions of a Pin Eye Zombie”. Link below.
Tickets for Pet Shop Boys’ “Dreamworld” show at the Royal Sandringham Estate on 14th August are now on sale at the link below.
I loved performing three songs at last night’s London Soundtrack Festival concert at the Roundhouse in London with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra arranged and conducted by Anne Dudley. In this photo Jake Shears and I are duetting on “Rent”. I also sang “Nothing has been proved” and “Everybody’s Talkin’” (from “Midnight Cowboy”). A great experience. Neil x
Photo: Julie Edwards
“Phantoms and Monsters”, composed by Mark Springer, with Neil Tennant on vocals and the Sacconi Quartet on strings is out now digitally at the link below.
This quintet piece is the opening track of Mark Springer’s forthcoming new album, “Sleep of Reason”, which will be released along with a solo piano piece and a quartet piece on 25th April 2025.
Neil discusses Pet Shop Boys’ relationship with Russia in an interview with the independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, now also published in The Guardian. Links below.
I just met the composer Mark Springer to get some CDs of his beautiful work, “Sleep of Reason”, the first part of which I sing on. It’s always exciting to get finished copies of a new record and this looks very handsome! It’s released on April 25th. Neil x