Features
Pet Shop Ballet
They’ve conquered the pop charts, the dance floor and the London stage, composed a semi-classical soundtrack for the seminal silent film “Battleship Potemkin” and sold 50 million albums since 1985. So what’s next for the Pet Shop Boys? Would you believe a ballet?
Photo: AP Photo
Pet Shop Boys get an assist from one of their biggest fans, The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, as they perform a career retrospective.
Neil Tennant – who, along with partner Chris Lowe, picked up an award for outstanding contribution to music at this week’s Brit Awards – told the BBC they’ve begun composing the piece, but haven’t gotten very far.
“It’s quite a big project. There’s a lot of music to write but we’ve written half an hour of it and we’ve done a bit of a workshop with [the songs].”
And what exactly will a PSB ballet sound like? This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed the duo’s career over the past 24 years: Tennant says it’s primarily “electronics and strings.”
So can fans expect something like “Billboards,” the 1994 Joffrey Ballet Company piece based on the music of Prince? Nope. Tennant and Lowe have already gone that route with “Closer to Heaven,” the 2001 West End musical that featured songs from the PSB catalog, along with a few original tunes.
Tennant told the Beeb the ballet, which will have a completely original score, is based on classic literature.
“It’s got a story, it’s like a Tchaikovsky ballet in that it’s based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen…”
And when should ballet (and PSB) fans start pressing their tuxes? Tennant said that could be a while (and unofficially announced a tour in the process).
“We’re going to be working on [the piece] across the year but we’re touring so we probably won’t get it really finished until the end of next year.”
Photo: AP Photo
Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany.
Pet Shop Boys’ immediate future includes the March release of a new album, Yes, which features contributions from Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Modest Mouse, The Cribs), as well as production team Xenomania (Cher, Saint Etienne, Girls Aloud).
Tennant and Marr previously worked together in the late ’80s as part of New Order frontman Bernard Sumner’s side project Electronic.
The first single from Yes, “Love etc.,” is being described by PSB as “a post-lifestyle anthem which sounds like nothing we’ve done before.”
Not quite sure what that means, but looking forward to hearing it just the same.
Read the BBC’s story on the upcoming album Yes here and on the PSB ballet here.