Legendary 80s band surprises fans with announcement of new ‘queer album’-Brooke Ivey Johnson-Entertainment – Metro

Pet Shop Boys have declared their upcoming new album will be their ‘queer album’ (Picture: Marc Pfitzenreuter/Redferns)

Pet Shop Boys are as fundamental to the 1980s as shoulder pads and hairspray – but that doesn’t mean they’re stuck in the neon decade. 

The iconic duo, vocalist Neil Tennant, 69, and keyboardist Chris Lowe, 64, are set to release their 15th album, Nonetheless, which they’ve dubbed their ‘queer album.’ 

Since they formed in London in 1981, Pet Shop Boys have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, won three Brit awards, and been nominated for six Grammys, and since 1984, they have achieved 42 top 30 singles, 22 of them top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart, including four UK number ones.

Now, they’ve decided to make something unlike anything they’ve ever done before. 

Tennant, who came out as gay in 1994, told NME that he thinks this album overtly celebrates the queerness that’s always been subtly woven through Pet Shop Boys’ music.

He said: ‘I think this is our queer album.’ 

Vocalist Neil Tennant explained that much of the album is inspired by various queer icons (Picture: Getty Images)

When asked what he means by this, he tells the publication that the album’s closing track, Love Is The Law, is inspired by gay Victorian playwright Oscar Wilde’s time in France after he was released from prison, a period he spent watching the underground gay culture around him.

Tennant says of the song: ‘So the language I’m trying to use is of sexual transactions – “trade,” “trick” – American slang for picking someone up.’

Another track on the album, entitled A New Bohemia, was inspired by a 1970s queer conceptual art troupe called Les Petitis Bon-Bons. 

If these references weren’t already enough to make the album unapologetically queer, there’s also the glory hole that’s featured in the video for Loneliness and the dramatic recounting of gay ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s escape from Russia to the West during the Cold War in the track Dancing Star. 

Pet Shop Boys, who formed in 1981, are one of the most successful dance-pop duos of all time (Picture: Getty Images)

Tennant has previously spoken about his fear that being open about his sexuality would confine Pet Shop Boys to the label of a ‘gay band.’ When asked if he still fears being pigeon-holed in this way, he admits that he doesn’t think modern gay artists can wholly escape being reduced to stereotypes. 

He mentions Troye Sivan, an openly gay pop star, saying: ‘But they say, ‘he’s not famous, he’s gay-famous’. So I’m not sure whether your thesis holds up, ‘cause I think people still think a little bit like that.’

He admits that what was once taboo is becoming increasingly accepted. He explains, ‘What I think now is that what you might call gay culture has become mainstream. Several years ago, I went to see Jake Shears in Kinky Boots on Broadway.

Nonetheless will be the band’s 12th album (Photo by Marc Pfitzenreuter/Redferns)

‘It was an essentially straight audience, and when the drag queens came on, they all went ballistic. I thought, “Wow, this whole thing’s just gone totally mainstream—and I think it’s because of RuPaul’s Drag Race.’

So, how are Pet Shop Boys navigating this changing world? Have they managed to remain relevant? In some ways, they’re enjoying the effects of the resurgence in cultural interest in all things 80s that has taken place recently. 

Their music saw a spike in streams after Barry Keoghan sang a karaoke version of their song Rent in Saltburn.  All of Us Strangers used the band’s 1987 Number One hit, Always On My Mind, as a musical motif throughout the film. 

Tennant didn’t come out until 1994 for fear of being labeled a ‘gay band’ (Picture: Lester Cohen/Getty Images)

Tennant appreciates the second life these songs are getting, saying: ‘What I love is that in each of those different films, our songs are used as plot points.’

The frontman isn’t as optimistic about the current state of pop music, complaining, ‘People are using songwriting as a diary now, but it’s basically writing about previous or current partners and dissing them or feeling sad about it.

The duo said ‘Pet Shop Boys are always in the era of now.’ (Picture: Andy Sheppard/Redferns)

‘One of the great liberating things about writing lyrics is you can write in character and pretend to be someone else. That’s why I think a lot of pop writing now is boring because to write about yourself assumes you are interesting.’

But Tennant isn’t worried about staying on trend. He concludes the interview by simply saying: ‘Pet Shop Boys are always in the era of now.’

Pet Shop Boys’ Nonetheless is out April 26.

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