PET SHOP BOYS (UK)

The band formed in London after Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe met in a hi-fi shop in the Chelsea area of London. Tenant was busy buying a synthesizer and the two started chatting. Tennant had worked in the UK branch of Marvel Comics and then moved on to get a job writing articles for the UK Music magazine ‘Smash Hits’. He and Lowe worked on some demos of songs and when Tennant was sent to the US to interview The Police who were touring there, he met with record producer Bobby Orlando. He gave Orlando a demo tape of ‘It’s A Sin’ and ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’. Orlando liked what he heard and the band recorded an album of songs which Orlando worked on. The track ‘West End Girls’ would become a dance hit in the clubs in Los Angeles but didn’t do much else. So the Pet Shop Boys cut ties with Orlando and then set about remixing the songs. They released ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’ which garnered a little bit of interest in the UK, apparently peaking at 116 on the UK charts. A remix of ‘West End Girls’ came next and this would go to number 1 in the UK and about 5 months later would sit on top of the US charts. They have gone on to see 48 UK charts hits (at the time of writing) with 3 further number 1’s (‘It’s A Sin’, ‘Always On My Mind’ and ‘Heart’). In the US they have seen 12 hits but no further number 1’s. Lovers of old Russian films would be interested to know that the Pet Shop Boys supplied a new soundtrack to the 1925 Sergei Eisenstein silent film ‘Battleship Potemkim’.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
16-Feb-1986	West End Girls	2	22
27-Aug-1987	It’s A Sin	1 (4)	26
26-Nov-1987	What Have I Done To Deserve This	16	16
07-Jan-1988	Always On My Mind	3	29
16-Jun-1988	Heart	6	16
22-Sep-1988	Domino Dancing	2	23
		Total hits	6
		Total weeks	132

Biggest climber awards	5
Star rater climbs	17
Biggest fallers	5
Weeks with oldest in the charts	7
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	79
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	24
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	58
Top 30 points ranking	19
Top 20 points ranking	19
Top 30 points	2479
Top 20 points	1292

Their run of 79 straight weeks in the charts was by far the best by any artist with Jennifer Rush seeing the second longest run of 55 weeks. The Pet Shop Boys’ run started on 27 August 1988 and continued until the last chart was broadcast on 23 February 1988 when they were sitting at 17 with ‘Domino Dancing’, so it is likely that run would have continued for at least a few more weeks had the charts carried on.

They would have the 14^th highest weeks count of any act.

They were 1 of 2 acts who managed 4 hits reach 20 weeks or more in the charts. The other one to manage this was George Michael.