On August 19th, Neil and Chris meet by chance in an electronics shop on the Kings Road. Realizing they have a common interest in dance music, they begin to write together. Initially they call themselves West End; later they come up with the name Pet Shop Boys, a name derived from some friends who work in a pet shop in Ealing. “We thought it sounded like an English rap group”.
The exact publication date seems lost, but sometime this month (though it’s dated the following month, February) the debut issue of Star Hits, the U.S. spinoff from the U.K. Smash Hits, appears on the newstands. It includes an interview, conducted the preceding November, by pre-stardom Neil Tennant with new-stardom Madonna, who at the time of their meeting had only one major hit single to her credit, ‘Holiday.’ (By the time of publication, she’d earned one more, ‘Lucky Star.’)
Billboard magazine runs a brief article that announces the upcoming new Pet Shop Boys album (Release) but points out that they don’t yet have a U.S. distribution label for it.
Neil is interviewed (over the phone) by Nicki Chapman on BBC Radio 2 this morning, during which he briefly discusses their upcoming album Hotspot and premiers their new single, ‘Monkey Business.’