I think I’ve never lost that feeling.”Īs a title Love Is A Bourgeois Construct is very Pet Shop Boys… “When you write pop songs, you make something out of nothing,” he says, smiling. It’s an ongoing story their euphoric 12th LP Electric is imminent, boasting a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Last To Die and, aptly for a lyricist with a history degree and an interest in Russia, the curious but anthemic Love Is A Bourgeois Construct. Experiments in instrumental composition, meanwhile, have extended their reach even further, making them one of the few groups equally at home on Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4. Belonging to that same subversive strain of British music as The Smiths and New Order (PSB have, indeed, worked with Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner on several occasions), they’ve remained as comfortable collaborating with David Bowie and Yoko Ono as with Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. Rather, their three-decade voyage in superior, literate pop – see the compilation Pop Art to gauge how well they’ve sustained – has succeeded in being wholly chart-accessible while maintaining a captivating sense of distance. They may have sold in the tens of millions across the planet since West End Girls became their first hit in 1985, but you could never accuse Pet Shop Boys of mere familiarity. “I think the old cliché that familiarity breeds contempt is 100 per cent true,” he says. Later, he grows unimpressed when considering online privacy, observing how Google records everything you do (“It’s like being in some paranoid thriller, without the thrilling bit”) and questioning the appeal of too much interacting on the internet. When muzak suddenly pipes up, he walks across the bar – where mobile phones are forbidden, except for discreet texting – and politely asks the staff to turn it off. An erudite and composed presence, his clear enunciation – not greatly dissimilar to his confiding, English singing voice – is periodically seasoned by the rapid intonations of his native Tyneside. He’s a well-preserved 59, smartly turned-out in Swedish denim brand Acne (all black) and dazzlingly white plimsolls. ![]() Seated by a window in the uncrowded, modish top floor bar, the voice and co-songwriter of Pet Shop Boys says he can’t conceive of it either. He’s leaving after a joint interview with Tennant, his musical partner of 32 years, in which he said he couldn’t imagine not being in the group. Fortunately, his fellow Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe soon appears to vouch for us. When MOJO arrives at east London members club Shoreditch House to meet Neil Tennant this late April afternoon, an efficient concierge-type bars the way, crisply stating that he has to personally sign us in. So, after three decades of grandiose hit-making, why does Neil Tennant still feels like “the loyal opposition”? As Pet Shop Boys get ready to return to Glastonbury, read our 2013 interview in full. ![]() A “former new wave snob”, he’s led the Pet Shop Boys from near-collapse to Olympic triumph.
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