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History

April 2023

On April 14, a new Pet Shop Boys’ EP, Lost, is released digitally and as part of the latest edition of the Pet Shop Boys periodical, Annually 2023. Lost was planned as a four track EP of songs that were originally demoed in 2015 for Super though now, in some cases, seemly newly relevant. Its title — taken from the first song, “The lost room”, inspired by a film about military school bullying and written in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Crimea — “also seems,” says Neil, “to represent a sort of larger, philosophical or political point, where there’ve been times recently where the world feels a bit lost in terms of the direction it’s going in.” This sense is further amplified by the last-minute addition of a fifth song, a more recent composition “Living in the past”, which the Pet Shop Boys had posted on social media two months earlier in rough demo form, accompanied by a video in which Vladimir Putin appeared to shapeshift into Joseph Stalin. 

Lost

2023 June

On June 16, a new Pet Shop Boys compilation, Smash, presenting 55 Pet Shop Boys’ singles from the years 1985 to 2020 in chronological order, is released. The title was Chris’s. “I was thinking of the artist Roy Lichtenstein,” says Chris. “It seemed very Roy Lichtenstein: Pow! Wham! Smash! And there’s also, ‘It’s a smash!’ – that’s what people used to say about singles. Also, there is the connection with Neil and Smash Hits.” Its sleeve is a combined, distorted version of previous Pet Shop Boys’ sleeves. “Listening through, I felt quite proud of the whole thing,” says Neil. “This astonishing number of singles over such long period of time. And I think the last CD is really good. You sort of imagine a moment where you might think, ‘this is all a bit dodgy now’, but in my opinion that doesn’t happen.” 

SMASH – The Singles 1985-2020

On this day

1995

Chris and Neil begin work on ‘Up Against It.’

2002

They perform at Wolverhampton, U.K.

2007

Following a two-week break from performing, the Boys resume their summer concert schedule at Villa Arconati in Milan—their first Italian show in five years. Among the concert-goers is the Romanian opera star Angela Gheorghiu, who had sung at La Scala the night before.

2009

A PSB interview with Dermot O’Leary runs this afternoon on BBC Radio 2. And this evening the Boys perform at the Dour Festival in Belgium.

2011

With Robbie Williams recovered from his recent bout of food poisoning, Take That and PSB perform this evening in Amsterdam.

2014

The Electric Tour comes to Pori, Finland.

2017

Six years to the day since their previous appearance in Amsterdam, the Pet Shop Boys perform tonight in that city’s Koninklijk Theater Carré.

2018

They appear in concert at the Starlite Festival in Marbella, Spain.

2024

They perform at the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland. (There’s obviously more than just jazz at the Pori Jazz Festival.)