“If a song manages to make you cry and dance at the same time, it has to be the Pet Shop Boys.” This is the first comment that we could read on YouTube last January, when the English duo published the single “Loneliness”, a precursor to their new album nevertheless. Three months later, when Neil Tennant (69) and Chris Lowe (64) were shown a screenshot Of this message, they smiled. And acquiesce. “This blend of pent-up melancholy and euphoria is our signature. There is no doubt about it. Even if it’s something unconscious, we find it on all our albums”, they explain, comfortably seated in the Warner Music UK recording studio, located in the lively Kensington district of London.
And seen like that, nevertheless is a 100% Pet Shop Boys album. Ten songs, no waste. Ballads, uptempo choruses, addictive synthpop, references to the past and also a new sound palette combining electro and big orchestra. A disc with modern elegance produced by their compatriot James Ford. “Iames perfectly matched the profile we were looking for. He has an electro background with his first project Simian Mobile Disco, has collaborated with Dave Gahan, Klaxons or Gorillaz but it is mainly his work on the album The Age Of The Understatement by The Last Shadow Puppets (the “supergroup” made up of Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane, Editor’s note) who convinced us. We were looking for someone who mastered dance beats, live traditional instruments and orchestral arrangements.”
Exacerbated by the feeling of isolation caused by confinement, this first album of original songs since Hotspot (2020) explores themes dear to Pet Shop Boys. Whether it’s solitude (“Loneliness”, “Ballet For Narcissus”), love (“Love Is The Law”), hedonism (“The Secret Of Happiness”), the desire to escape (“A New Bohemia”), or even “Dancing Star”, a tribute to the dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
In your press release, you present nevertheless as “a celebration of the emotions that make us human”. A bit of a cliché as a formula, no?
CHRIS LOWE: “You want to know the truth? It wasn’t us who said that. It was ChatGPT. The label called us: ‘We need a pitch for your new album.’ We said: ‘Why don’t you not use artificial intelligence to find the perfect punchline?’ We entered the terms ‘pop group’, ‘sad songs’, ‘happy songs’ into the ChatGPT search engine and that’s the phrase that came up. We wouldn’t be able to present our music in that way.”
NEIL TENNANT: “It’s indeed a very cliché formula. But when you think about it, it’s exactly what all pop groups aspire to. We ourselves could have used it for all our albums.”
nevertheless is your fifteenth studio album. Is wonder still relevant?
NT: “We made all our records for the same fundamental reason. We love writing songs. And when we’ve sorted it out and we have ten or twelve good enough ones left, we decide to record them. That’s when things change from one album to another. We’re looking for a new producer, a new sound, a new artwork. All this represents a particularly exciting long-term artistic work. that we like. The excitement and pleasure of doing. nevertheless were even stronger than on our previous recordings because this whole creative process was accomplished during the Covid period which was full of uncertainties about the future.”
CL: “The wonder always comes from the songs. And to be honest, it’s still a big surprise, after all these years, to be able to get to this phase where you can say ‘we have enough songs to go into the studio’. our beginnings, in 1985, the EMI label offered us a contract to make seven albums. We wondered how we were going to be able to write so many songs. And today we are in 2024 with album number 15. crazy.”
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What is more difficult for artists of your generation: renewing themselves in the texts or in the sound?
NT: “For sound, we always remain curious. There are no more musical notes than before but there are constantly new tools to play them. During confinement, I had fun working for the first time with the recording and creation software GarageBand In the studio with James Ford, we were also able to be very inventive. For the lyrics, it is more complicated. Although technology is constantly evolving, human feelings remain the same. A meeting, a crush, a breakup… You have to be able to tell that with other words, other formulas, other references. The whole history of pop comes down to this ability to find new ways of speaking. say ‘I love you’ I usually trust my inspiration when it comes, I let it carry me without thinking or analyzing too much.
Have you ever repeated yourself in a song?
NT: “It’s my biggest fear. Luckily, Chris is there to tell me, ‘Neil, I think you’ve used this formula before.’ But sometimes it’s too late and I feel ashamed. ‘Angels Fear to Tread’ (‘Angels are afraid to walk’). It’s a very nice expression. I’m very proud of it. The problem is that I used it in two different songs. ‘Discoteca’ on the album Bilingual in 1996 and ‘The Sodom And Gomorrah Show’ on Fundamental, ten years later. I always promised myself that one day I would re-record one of them and change the lyrics. I will sleep much better.”
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In 2020, your song “West End Girls” was crowned the best English single of all time in a poll carried out by the newspaper The Guardian. Were you surprised?
N.T.: “The list of songs for which readers could vote was very rock and very ‘group’, including singles by the Stones, the Beatles, Blur and Oasis. I thought that the choice of Guardian to include ‘West End Girls’ in his list and our duo was not going to please everyone. So it was a nice surprise. I voted for ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials.”
CL: “I would have chosen ‘Heroes And Villains’ or ‘Good Vibrations’ by the Beach Boys but neither was on the list. To return to ‘West End Girls’, this single was a happy accident. When we released it in 1984, it went unnoticed. It was when ‘West End Girls’ came out a year later after we signed with EMI that the radios and MTV started to react. A lot of media at the time. thought we were only going to last as long as one hit. We feared it too, it was a one shot. or two other decent songs in stock.”
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You cite David Bowie as the ultimate pop reference. Were you disappointed when he expressed doubts about the remix you did of “Hallo Spaceboy” in 1995?
NT: “It’s not that he didn’t like our remix. He was, on the other hand, surprised by our proposal. ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ remains my favorite song from Outside, a very experimental album by Bowie with sounds When he commissioned us to do a remix, we wanted to make it a more danceable and refined piece. For me, ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ continued the alien theme that Bowie had explored in ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Ashes To. Ashes’. Without warning him, we added lyrics from ‘Space Oddity’ in the remix and it disturbed him at first because for him there was no connection with ‘Hallo Spaceboy’. the chance to perform this remix with Bowie at the 1996 Brit Awards and on the show Top Of The Pops from the BBC. This collaboration remains one of the most miraculous moments of our career.”
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About ten years ago, the animal rights association PETA asked you to change the name of your group. Was it wokism before its time?
NT: “No, but it wasn’t a joke either. The request came to us via a particularly well-argued official letter. To raise awareness about animal abuse, PETA wanted Pet Shop Boys ) renamed itself Rescue Shelter Boys (‘animal shelter employees’) We told them that unfortunately this was not possible but that we would publish their letter on our website to promote their cause to our community. fans.”
The Pet Shop Boys story began in August 1981 when you met in an electronics store in Chelsea. Do you remember the first words you exchanged?
CL: “It was the kind of store you didn’t come into at the time. You must have been into electronic gadgets and music. We must have talked about that or maybe we were wondering where the salesman was hiding because I don’t remember seeing anyone behind the counter.”
