Biography

Neil Francis Tennant born on July 10 1954 in North Shields, Northumberland.

Christopher Sean Lowe born on October 4 1959 in Blackpool Lancashire.

Neil Tennant grew up listening to the Beatles, Motown, and David Bowie. I started writing songs when I was about 12,he says. Before moving to London at the age of 10, he played in an obscure group called Dust. In 1975 he completed an honors degree in history and became the British editor of Marvel Comics, later working as an editor in book publishing and then being hired as assistant editor of Smash Hits, Britain's best selling music magazine.Chris Lowe grew up in a family with show business roots. His mother was a professional dancer before she married, while his grandfather played trombone in the Nitwits, a comedy jazz band who appeared in Las Vegas, Paris, "all over the world really " remembers Lowe. In the seventies, Chris became an aficionado of disco music and his love of dance music still inspires much of the Pet Shop Boys' work. In 1981, Chris Lowe, then an architecture student, met Neil Tennant in a Kings Road music shop. Feeling an immediate simpatico, the pair began penning songs together. "We had a really terrible cassette recorder," says Neil, "and we used to record cassette-to-cassette live." The duo was undaunted by their low-tech set-up. "To write a song," Neil comments, "you don't really need very much at all." They chose the name "Pet shop boys" because some friends of Chris worked in a London pet shop. Neil and Chris have also said "it reminded us of the hip-hop groups of the early 80's which we were so fond of." Many people suspect they were thinking of NYC Peech Boys in particular. Names which were rejected include West End among others.

In the summer of 1983 they went to USA where they recorded "West End Girls" and "Opportunities". These songs were released as singles in the following year, but they became only small hits in USA and France, so they continued as reporter and student. In 1985 they re-recorded the two songs with the biggest producer Bobby Orlando and they now became big hits, especially "West End Girls" that became No. 1 in both UK and USA. They released two more hit No.1 and the first great album "Please" in the 1986. The name "Please" was meant as a pun, you should go into the record store and say: "Can I buy Pet Shop Boys album please?". After "Please" they released the remix album "Disco" which had mixes of the four hit-singles from "Please" and two B-sides like" Paninaro" and "In the night". In 1987 they released the album "Actually" with the four hit-singles "Rent", "It's a sin" and "What I have...." singed with Dusty Springfield. In the same year they wrote and produced eight songs from the D. Springfield album's "Reputetion". "Actually" was also meant as a pun, because they wrote "Not from the album actually" .The single "Always On My Mind", an Elvis Presley cover which was released in the same year. In 1988 they released "Introspective" with remixes, for example of some of their singles and the song "I'm Not Scared" which they had written for Patsy Kensit band's Eighth Wonder. In 1990 they released "Behaviour", with the singles "Being Boring", "So Hard" and "Jealousy" their first song ever written. In 1991 they released a collection, "Discography", with their first 18 singles and contains the cover of U2's song "Where the streets have no name". In 1993 Psb released the Number 1 album "Very" with the hit-singles "Can you forgive her?"and "Go West", which is a cover of Village People's song.Then Chris written and produced the song "Do the right thing" for the massive english footballer Ian Wright.Then they worked with Kilye Minogue to produced the track "Falling" for her album. They also produced the album for the artist Cicero , that appears in the soundtrack of "The soldier's wife" produced also by the PSB with Boy George. In 1994 they realesed "Disco 2", yet another remix album. This album is by most fans considered to be their least good album. In 1995 they released yet another collection, "Alternative". That album contains all their B-sides and some bonus tracks from their CD-singles. It's a double CD with 30 songs like " Violence H.V." and "Shameless" where they experiment more than on their singles and album songs. In the spring of 1996 they released a single together with David Bowie called "Hallo Spaceboy". In September 1996 they released the album "Bilingual". From that album they released the singles "Before", "Se A Vida E (That's The Way Life Is)", "Single" and "A Red Letter Day".It's a very good album with sounds a bit different. In July 1997 they released the single from the soundtrack of "West side story" , for their live SAVOY shows. In the spring 1998 Neil realesed the album "20TH CENTURY BLUES THE SONGS OF NOEL COWARD" for the Red hot aids charity that contains the track "Sail away" produced by PSB and programming R.Williams song "There a bad time just around the corner". In 1999 they released the album Nigthlife with the hit singles "I don't know what you want..." , "New york city boy " and " You only tell me.." produced with David Morales.And the story goes on.......

For more details see the section Discography.

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