‘West End girls’ is released on October 28th and goes to #1 in the UK in January. It is subsequently #1 in USA, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand and Norway, selling 1.5 million copies. “People endlessly ask us what it’s like having a #1” says Neil at the time. “But what it feels like is vaguely nothing. It feels like having a cup of tea”.
They play a short set as part of the ICA Rock Week in London, Chris showing off his skills on the trombone. Neil and Chris are interviewed on stage by Max Headroom. They re-record ‘West End girls’ with producer Stephen Hague the same month.
On July 1st, the first version of ‘Opportunities’ is released. It reached #116 in the UK.
On April 5th, Neil leaves Smash Hits. In the next issue an ‘obituary’ is written, bidding him a sad adieu and predicting that in a matter of weeks Neil’s pop duo, the Pet Shop Boys “will be down the dumper and he’ll come crawling back on bended knees, ha ha ha”. “I spoke to my mum on the telephone and said how we’d signed with EMI and she said “But you’re not going to give up your job, are you?” and I said, actually I did last week”.
They sign to Parlophone Records after long negotiations with Bobby O’, who relinquished his contractual rights over them in return for a substantial royalty on future record sales.
They make their first ever stage appearance at the Fridge Nightclub in Brixton, singing and playing over tapes.
The first version of ‘West End girls’ is released. It is a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco and a small hit in France and Belgium.
Neil is sent to New York by Smash Hits to interview The Police. By this time the Pet Shop Boys are obsessed by a stream of hi energy records made by New York producer Bobby Orlando, known as Bobby O’. “I thought well, if I’ve got to go and see The Police play then I’m also going to have lunch with Bobby O’ ”. Neil and Bobby O share a cheeseburger and carrot cake at a restaurant called The Apple Jack on August 19th (two years to the day since Neil and Chris met) and Bobby O’, flatered by Neil’s compliments, suggests making a record with the Pet Shop Boys.
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”.
Chris goes to Liverpool University to study architecture. During 1981 ‑1982 he spends a year gaining practical experience in a London architectural practice, designing a staircase in an industrial development in Milton Keynes. “It’s not a remarkable staircase”, he comments when visiting it in 1988, “It’s just a functional staircase”.
An interview with Neil runs in the U.K. publication Woman.
The Boys perform in Karlstad, Sweden.
Continuing their summer Fundamental Tour, they perform at the Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia.
The last of eight PSB/Take That concerts at Wembley Stadium—and the final show of the tour in the British Isles—takes place this evening.
The Pet Shop Boys perform in Freiburg, Germany.
Having received Jean-Michel Jarre’s backing track for what will soon become ‘Brick England,’ Chris and Neil spend the first of several days adding musical parts and vocals to it.
The Boys continue work on ‘No Boundaries,’ restructuring it and revising the lyrics.
They bring their Dreamworld Tour to Spain’s Bilbao Live Festival.
They conclude the brief continental European leg of their current tour with a show in Gothenberg, Sweden.