Pet Shop Boys is a British synthpop/dance music duo, consisting of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe and were formed in London, UK in 1981Post-modern ironists cloaked behind a veil of buoyantly melodic and lushly romantic synth pop confections, Pet Shop Boys offer wry yet strangely affecting cultural commentary communicated by the Morse code of synth washes and drum machine rhythms After first emerging in the mid-'80s with "West End Girls" and "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)," Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe quickly established themselves as hitmaking singles artists who were also able to craft emotionally resonant albums, like 1988's Introspective and 1990's Behaviour The duo navigated the constantly shifting landscape of modern dance-pop with grace and intelligence, moving easily from disco to house music to thoughtful synth pop without losing their distinctive style in the process Continuing to evolve artistically, Pet Shop Boys incorporated Latin music on 1996's Bilingual, expanded into theater and ballet, and morphed into elder statesmen of electronic pop, still able to release interesting albums after more than 30 years, as evidenced by highlights like 2016's Super and 2020's HotspotPet Shop Boys formed in London in August 1981, when vocalist Tennant (a former editor at Marvel Comics who later gained recognition as a journalist for Smash Hits magazine) first met keyboardist Lowe (a onetime architecture student) at an electronics shop Discovering a shared passion for dance music and synthesizers, they immediately decided to start a band After dubbing themselves Pet Shop Boys in honor of friends who worked in such an establishment -- while also obliquely nodding to the sort of names prevalent among the New York City hip-hop culture of the early '80s -- the duo's career first took flight in 1983, when Tennant met producer Bobby "O" Orlando while on a writing assignment Orlando produced their first single, 1984's "West End Girls" The song was a minor hit in the U
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