Decoding the queer legacy of Pet Shop Boys

If there's such a thing as the perfect pop lyric, the Pet Shop Boys surely nailed it with the crisp payoff from their 1987 single Rent: "I love you, you pay my rent." The song's title and subject matter has always felt queer-coded because it lets the mind wander to "rent boy", a now slightly outmoded term for a male sex worker. But interestingly, Pet Shops Boys frontman Neil Tennant has said Rent was actually written about a mistress whose politician lover keeps her in "a smart flat in Manhattan". Like many great Pet Shop bops, it's all the more evocative because it leaves room for ambiguity.

At times, Pet Shop Boys have written more patently gay lyrics – check out 2003's The Night I Fell in Love, a slyly subversive song about a male fan who sleeps with a rapper known for spitting homophobic disses. But generally, and especially earlier in their career, Tennant and his longtime partner in pop Chris Lowe have favoured a more veiled approach. Before Tennant came out as gay in a 1994 interview with Attitude – Lowe, for the record, has never publicly labelled his sexuality – the queer subtext in their lyrics probably have passed many listeners by. Now, as they prepare to release their 15th studio album Nonetheless this Friday (April 26), the Pet Shop Boys are rightly seen as queer elder statesmen. But this wasn't necessarily always the case. 

In that landmark Attitude interview, Tennant spoke eloquently – when does he not? – about the difference between Pet Shop Boys and Bronski Beat, a synth-pop act who were out, proud and avowedly political from the start. "The Pet Shop Boys came along to make fabulous records, we didn’t come along to be politicians or to be positive role models," Tennant explained. However, he also argued that Pet Shop Boys "have contributed, through our music and also through our videos and the general way we’ve presented things, rather a lot to what you might call 'gay culture'". The way Tennant saw it, "the simple reason for this is that I have written songs from my own point of view“ – his own gay point of view.

It's difficult to disagree with Tennant's assessment of his pre-coming out output. In the '80s and early '90s, Pet Shop Boys scored hits with songs about his suffocating Catholic education (It's a Sin), losing friends to AIDS (Being Boring) and a man living a lie in a straight relationship (Can You Forgive Her?). "She's made you some kind of laughing stock because you dance to disco and you don't like rock," Tennant sings on the latter: another perfect pop lyric. They also produced hits for gold-plated gay icons Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli. Queer cabaret performer Hersh Dagmarr calls Pet Shop Boys "the Oscar Wilde of pop music" because their music is defined by a "sense of eloquence, humour, poetry and melancholy while embracing the joy and even euphoria of surviving in a hostile world". For Dagmarr, the duo displayed plenty of "grace" by creating this music "at a time where being gay or queer was still shamed and repressed by society".

For Connor Gotto, founder and editor of RETROPOP magazine, Pet Shop Boys' approach in this era was something of a Trojan horse. "It was pretty effective when you consider that they were releasing songs from the LGBTQ+ angle and scoring countless hits – at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis – without the majority of people even questioning the subject matter," he says. Gotto also believes there was "something quite profound" in the way that their music helped to "open people's eyes" to LGBTQ+ viewpoints and imagery. The beautiful music video for their 1988 smash Domino Dancing features two young Puerto Rican men competing for the attention of an equally attractive young woman. It's an ostensibly heterosexual storyline shot through an inescapably homoerotic lens, especially when the love rivals wrestle shirtless in the sea.

Artwork photography: Tim Walker Studio / Artwork design: Farrow/PSB

Pet Shop Boys may not have set out to become "positive role models", but over their 40-year career, they've attained this status anyway. This isn't just because of their longevity and polished songcraft – even their drabber albums contain some absolute bangers - but also because of their unique place on the UK pop landscape. These days, they're instantly recognisable as Neil and Chris: sometimes dry and playful, sometimes quietly heartbreaking, always considered and classy. "There's a handful of peers from when they first started who are still going strong, but very few acts have pushed forward creatively so consistently," Gotto says.  He also points out that whoever they choose to work with – from their '80s producer Stephen Hague to the Xenomania songwriting team on 2009's Yes –  the result is "always first and foremost a Pet Shop Boys record". For their upcoming album Nonetheless, they've teamed with producer James Ford, who's previously collaborated with Arctic Monkeys and Jessie Ware.

The album's sublime, sad but hopeful lead single Loneliness comes with a stunning video directed by top fashion photographer Alasdair McLellan. Set in Sheffield in 1992, it shows a young man exploring his sexuality by hooking up with men in public toilets. It's every bit as homoerotic as 1988's Domino Dancing, but obviously much more overtly queer. Gotto believes the veiled gayness of Pet Shop Boys' early work didn't just help to "pave the way" for today's out and proud queer performers such as Olly Alexander and Troye Sivan, but also enabled Tennant and Lowe to be more "open and unrestricted" in their own work. Not every Pet Shop Boys song is queer-coded – far from it – but these days they clearly feel freer to lean into LGBTQ+ themes.

But in a way, the cornerstone of Pet Shop Boys' queer legacy may be the way their music connects with successive generations of LGBTQ+ people. Gotto highlights New London Boy, a barbed banger from the duo's new album. "Skinheads will mock you, call you a fag," Tennant raps in his distinctive West End Girls style. "Last laugh is yours – there's a brick in your bag."  Says Gotto: "It’s funny – I moved to London from a small fishing town in the north of England over four decades after [Tyneside-raised] Neil made that move, but that song really resonates. Dagmarr, who has created a Pets-themed cabaret show called Indefinite Leave To Remain, says the duo's music conjured up images of London before he moved here from his native France. "Their songs always seem to have a slight tone of melancholy and romanticism mixed with a very British sense of humour," he says. He also praises Tennant's lyrics for "depicting a certain type of gay angst without too much weight". 

For me, it's the poignant optimism of their 1997 single A Red Letter Day that remains endlessly inspiring. Tennant has said this song is "about waiting for someone to tell you they love you”, but the lyrics also feel like a paean to coming out. "For all of those who don’t fit it, who follow their instincts and are told they sin, this is a prayer for a different way," he sings. It's classic Pet Shop Boys: perceptive, empathetic, crafted with an unmistakable queerness at the core. Long may Tennant and Lowe continue to supply an elegantly measured soundtrack to our lives. 

Nonetheless by Pet Shop Boys is out April 26 via Parlophone Records. Hersh Dagmarr performs Indefinite Leave To Remain – The Songs of The Pet Shop Boys at London's Crazy Coqs on June 28 at 7pm.