History Music / PetShopBoys

[[AC: Discography:]]

* ArmouredClosetGay: "In Denial" is about a father who is in deep denial with the fact that he's gay and Music/KylieMinogue plays his daughter, who tries to confront him about coming to terms with it.

* ConfusingMultipleNegatives: The song "Tonight Is Forever" has the line "Tonight is forever, tell me now you don't disagree". Justified as it wouldn't fit the meter otherwise, and it [[RuleOfCool just sounds better that way.]]

* DarkReprise: "Dreaming Of The Queen"-- The chorus starts off as Her Majesty and Lady Diana discussing how fleeting love is. It ends with the narrator waking up alone in a cold sweat and realizing he has AIDS.

* WhileYouWereInDiapers: Subverted in "Young Offender" with the line "I've been a teenager since before you were born"; it sounds like the kind of boast usually seen with this trope, but the narrator continues "I'm younger than some, I've only begun" admitting he has not emotionally/mentally matured since his teenage years.

* TrueArtIsAngsty: [[invoked]] Poked fun at in "Miserablism".
-->''Just for the sake of it, make sure you're always frowning. / It shows the world that you have substance and depth.''
* UptownGirl: "West End Girls" ... [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible probably]].

* TheEighties: Too many people still relate them to TheEighties, mainly because they started their career then and enjoyed worldwide success then, although their career spans more than three decades, up to now, and still were successful from the 90's onwards (although noticeably less mainstream).

** Even their release of "It doesn't often snow at Christmas" with revamped album track "All over the world" and two cover songs ("[[Music/{{Madness}} My girl]]" and "[[Music/{{Coldplay}} Viva la vida]]"), which charted as a single but is considered an EP, was accordingly given the one-word title ''Christmas''.

** Most so, the video to "Can You Forgive Her?". The song is about a guy with a [[TheBeard girlfriend who knows more about his sexuality than he does]]. The video? Two guys in traffic cone hats and orange jumpsuits riding tandem bicycles, feeding geese, playing psychic air hockey with a spiky blue potato, turning into human drills, walking on a miniature Earth with a couple of emus, and burping orange bubbles. And no, [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs they don't do drugs]].

* LongTitle: "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Anymore", "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", "This Must Be The Place I Waited Years to Leave". Inverted with the album titles, which are always one word.

* ManOnFire: The sequence to "King's Cross" in ''It Couldn't Happen Here''.

** Averted ''again'' (!) with "Dreaming of the Queen." The song's tragic tone ("there are no more lovers left alive") and references to Princess Diana could make you believe that it owed something to her untimely death, but it had actually been released four years previously.

They have also co-written and produced a musical, 2001's ''Closer to Heaven'', starred in a film, 1987's ''It Couldn't Happen Here'', written a new score for the classic movie ''Film/TheBattleshipPotemkin'' in 2004, and premiered a ballet, ''The Most Incredible Thing'', in March 2011.

* {{Sampling}}: The voice [[TitleDrop saying the song's title]] in "Two Divided by Zero" is taken from a talking calculator Neil Tennant bought for his father.

* BrainsAndBrawn: The singer in "Opportunities" figures that since he has "the brains" while a second party has "the brawn" and "the looks", the two are capable of working together to get rich.

* BrainsAndBrawn: The singer's reasoning in "Opportunities".
-->''I've got the brains\\
You've got the brawn\\

You can now vote for your favourite Pet Shop Boys album by heading over to the [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/Sandbox/BestAlbumPetShopBoys Best Album crowner.]]