History Music / PetShopBoys

* TheNotSecret: Neil Tennant's sexuality, which isn't a TransparentCloset because he never really was in the closet before officially coming out in 1994.

* DivideByZero: The song "Two Divided By Zero".

* [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Real Life Writes The Song]]: The exuberance of ''Very'' is a direct result of Neil being in love at the time. "Your Funny Uncle", "Being Boring", and "Postscript" were all inspired by and dedicated to friends who had died of AIDS. "So hard" is about an unfaithful couple they knew at the time.

* 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).
* TheMovie: ''It Couldn't Happen Here'' was intended to open in cinemas instead of their going on tour. It didn't work out.
* TheNotSecret: Neil Tennant's sexuality, which isn't a TransparentCloset because he never really was in the closet before officially coming out in 1994.

* ListSong: The last half of "I Want A Dog" is just Chris reading off a list of dog breeds. "Paninaro" rants about passion, love, sex, money, violence, religion, injustice and death, all mentioned as a list in the song. And "We're The Pet Shop Boys" ends with a list of their song titles.

* AGoodNameForARockBand: Officially, the band is "Pet Shop Boys", no "the". However, they don't mind if it's included, and they even refer to themselves as "the Pet Shop Boys" during live shows.
** Closer to the trope, IAmNotShazam below.

** Also, their cover version of "Always On My Mind" ends with the line "Maybe I didn't love you.", completely changing the original song's meaning.

* CoverVersion: "Always On My Mind" (Willie Nelson), "It's Alright" (Sterling Void), "Where The Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" (mashup of U2 and Frankie Valli), "Go West" (Village People), "Losing My Mind" and "Somewhere" (Stephen Sondheim), "If Love Were All" and "Sail Away" (NoelCoward), and "Viva La Vida" (Coldplay). Some music bits of "Se a vida é" were famously taken from a previous latin song.

* BackToFront: "One Thing Leads To Another": The song begins with a man dying after a car crash, and ends with the man's girlfriend moving out. In between, the man falls into depression and loses his job, goes to a bar, gets drunk, picks up a woman and gets her in bed only to find [[DroppedABridgetOnHim she's a pre-op transsexual]], tries to drive home in drunken confusion, and wrecks.

They are also successful producers and collaborators, having produced Dusty Springfield's ''Reputation'' and Liza Minnelli's ''Results'', and having co-written or produced songs for Tina Turner, DavidBowie, Robbie Williams, Electronic, GirlsAloud, KylieMinogue, and TheKillers. Many other artists are fans and have publicly cited them as influences, including {{Madonna}}, TheKillers, {{Coldplay}}, GeorgeMichael, BelleAndSebastian, and, curiously enough, [[Music/GunsNRoses Axl Rose]] and [[NineInchNails Trent Reznor]].

Despite popular misconceptions due to Tennant's typical dry delivery, their music is not inherently ironic. While they have done a few ironic songs ("Opportunities"), a surprising proportion of their songs are honestly emotional. Another interesting bit about their music is that Neil often plays a character in their songs, and not necessarily a male character. "I Made My Excuses and Left", for example, is him playing Cynthia Lennon walking in on [[TheBeatles John]] and [[YokoOno Yoko]] and realizing her marriage is over.

** TheCoverChangesTheGender: notably averted in "Try it (I'm in love with a married man)", "If love were all" and "In private" (the version they made in 2006 with Elton John), giving the three of them a heaping helping of HoYay.

* DistinctDoubleAlbum: The GreatestHits album ''[=PopArt=]'' was structured in this style; one disc called ''Pop'' with the more poppy stuff and one disc more experimental and arty, called ''Art''. The limited edition version carried a third disc called ''Mix'' - no prizes for guessing what that consisted of.

** "It's a Sin" is also quite upbeat, with lyrics about the repeated sins he has committed in his life.

* ProtestSong: "Shopping" is about Thatcherism. "This Used To Be The Future" is about Iran and nukes. A lot on ''Fundamental'' is meant to protest the Iraq War and Tony Blair, especially "Integral", which is about the proposed national ID cards in the UK. It's the only song they've ever done where Neil sounds genuinely pissed off, and one of their very few songs where the video correlates to the message of the song. See SurrealMusicVideo below. Not to mention "I'm With Stupid," which is a satire of the relationship between Tony Blair and George W. Bush done as a [[HoYay gay]] [[CrackPairing love song]].

** And the video for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBiaRBUjUs&ob=av3e Love etc.]] looks like some MontyPython-esque video game.

* [=~Pachelbel's Canon Progression~=]: "Go West", in which the progression is more prominent than it was in the VillagePeople original.

* [[Music/{{Instrumentals}} Instrumentals]]: Most of the "Chris tracks", namely "Music for boys", most ''Relentless'' album, and most their ''Battleship Potemkin'' score for that film.

* HoYay: The sheer amout of hoyay in the "Domino Dancing" video pretty much shifted the entire demographic of their American fanbase. As far as the songs go, "If Love Were All", "I'm With Stupid", "Euroboy", "Sexy Northerner", "Try It (I'm In Love With A Married Man)", "The Truck Driver And His Mate", "The Night I Fell In Love", and everything in ''Closer to Heaven''. An unreleased song they performed live, "Homosexuality", has a pretty obvious song title. The version of "In private" they performed with Elton John is also quite hoyay as the song had been originally written to be performed by a woman (namely, Dusty Springfield). Also some LesYay in "Girls Don't Cry".
* IAmNotShazam: Neither of the band members ever worked in a pet shop. Some mutual friends of theirs did, and they thought "Pet Shop Boys" sounded like an English rap group, so they ran with it.

* GriefSong: "Your Funny Uncle". It really, really shows in the vocals, and they only did one take because Neil broke down crying afterwards.

* ExecutiveMeddling: "London" was only released as a single in Germany because EMI was wary about releasing a PSB song with the lyrics "Let's break the law!". And in "Casanova in Hell", the line "His ageing fate/To contemplate" once had [[ADateWithRosiePalms another]] [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean rhyme there]]. They didn't eventually release "The Sodom and Gomorrah show" as a single because the song mentioned the word "Sodom" and the EMI feared it wouldn't be played on the radios.

* CoverVersion: "Always On My Mind" (Willie Nelson), "It's Alright" (Sterling Void), "Where The Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" (mashup of U2 and Frankie Valli), "Go West" (Village People), "Losing My Mind" and "Somewhere" (Stephen Sondheim), "If Love Were All" and "Sail Away" (Noel Coward), and "Viva La Vida" (Coldplay). Some music bits of "Se a vida é" were famously taken from a previous latin song.