Pet Shop Boys, Literally

The Pet Shop Boys are one of the most successful and unusual bands of the last five decades. They are the pop duo that proves pop music can be modern, ecstatic and playful as well as serious and intelligent, winning them legions of devoted fans throughout the world. In 1989, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe invited journalist Chris Heath and photographer Lawrence Watson to shadow them around Hong Kong, Japan and the UK as they embarked on their first-ever tour. This book is the result: an immersive portrait giving access into the duos inner sanctum, showing them in brilliantly observed detail as they work, relax, gossip, argue and occasionally try to make sense of what they do. As clear a picture as could be wished for of the seething mass of elegant contradictions that is the Pet Shop Boys on-the-road experience. Independent on Sunday This superbly reported book transcends tired rock journalism clich. Its about what it means to be a pop star, what it means to be a Pet Shop Boy how to love pop, hold it to a higher standard and subvert its expectations. Laura Snapes