page_title: Pet Shop Boys
section_title: Bilingual, Nightlife and the musical Closer to Heaven: 1996–2001
hierarchical_section_title: Pet Shop Boys / History / Bilingual, Nightlife and the musical Closer to Heaven: 1996–2001
caption_attribution_description: English: Pet Shop Boys performing live in Turku Finland 1997
context_page_description: Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo, formed in London in 1981 and consisting of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe.
  Pet Shop Boys have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and were listed as the most successful duo in UK music history in the 1999 edition of The Guinness Book of Records. Three-time Brit Award winners and six-time Grammy nominees, since 1985 they have achieved 42 Top 30 singles, 22 of them Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart, including four UK number ones: "West End Girls", "It's a Sin", a synthpop version of "Always on My Mind", and "Heart". Other hit songs include a cover of "Go West", "Opportunities", and "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" in a duet with Dusty Springfield. With five US top ten singles in the 1980s, they are associated with the Second British Invasion.
  At the 2009 Brit Awards in London, Pet Shop Boys received an award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2016, Billboard magazine named Pet Shop Boys the number one dance duo/group over the 40 years since the chart's inception in 1976. In 2017, the duo received NME's Godlike Genius Award.
context_section_description: The Pet Shop Boys remix of the David Bowie song "Hallo Spaceboy" (co-written by Brian Eno), from the album Outside, featured Tennant on backing vocals and was released in the UK on 19 February 1996. The Pet Shop Boys then joined Bowie during his performance of the song at the 1996 BRIT Awards ceremony, as well as an appearance on the Top of the Pops television program.
  In April, Pet Shop Boys released a new single, "Before", leading up to their forthcoming album; the single reached number 7 in the UK Singles Chart. That same month, Tina Turner also released her Wildest Dreams album, which featured the Pet Shop Boys-produced track "Confidential". In August, Pet Shop Boys released a follow-up single, "Se a vida é (That's the Way Life Is)", a Latin American music-inspired track, featuring a drum sample from a track called "Estrada da paixão" by Brazilian act Olodum. This preceded the sixth Pet Shop Boys album Bilingual, which was released in September. In December 1996, Neil appeared live with Suede, singing the Suede song "Saturday Night" as a duet with Brett Anderson and Pet Shop Boys track "Rent". Both live tracks were released with the Suede single "Filmstar" in July 1997.
  Pet Shop Boys kicked off Summer 1997 with a sold-out three-week residency at the Savoy Theatre, in London, in June. Titled Somewhere and being promoted by a cover version of the song "Somewhere" from the musical West Side Story, the shows used projections filmed by the artist Sam Taylor-Wood. Pet Shop Boys would later work with Sam Taylor-Wood again: in 1998, they recorded a version of "Je t'aime... moi non plus", originally by Serge Gainsbourg, with her and again in 2003, they covered the Donna Summer track "Love to Love You Baby", and gave it a limited edition release credited to Kiki Kokova, a pseudonym used by Taylor-Wood for this project.
  The majority of 1998 was spent with a series of live dates and minor releases, including a charity album of Noël Coward songs, called Twentieth Century Blues. The album included Pet Shop Boys' version of "Sail Away", along with songs performed by Elton John, Texas, Marianne Faithfull, The Divine Comedy, Suede, Damon Albarn, Vic Reeves and Robbie Williams. Tennant also co-produced the Williams track and provided backing vocals for Elton John. Tennant provided backing vocals on Robbie Williams' "No Regrets" single, along with Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy. Meanwhile, the band switched managers again as Carrington resigned and was succeeded by Mitch Clark, who had previously worked for EMI International as Head of Promotion.
  During this time, Pet Shop Boys began to work with playwright Jonathan Harvey on a stage musical project. In 1999, many of the tracks recorded ended up on the duo's seventh studio album, Nightlife, which included the Top 20 singles "I Don't Know What You Want But I Can't Give It Any More" and "New York City Boy", the Top 10 hit "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk", "Closer to Heaven"—which would later become the title of Pet Shop Boys' musical—as well a duet with Kylie Minogue, "In Denial", about a father coming out to his daughter. Minogue later performed the track live, during her 2005 Showgirl tour, singing to a pre-recorded Neil Tennant. This is not the first time that Pet Shop Boys have worked with Minogue: in 1994, they indeed wrote a song for inclusion on her eponymous Kylie Minogue album, called "Falling", which was based on an unreleased remix of "Go West" with new lyrics by Tennant; however, Minogue and her record company did not like the production sound of Pet Shop Boys' demo and asked Farley & Heller to finally produce the track.
  1999 ended for the duo with a world tour, which continued well into 2000, this time with the stage sets designed by architect Zaha Hadid. The tour took them to the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and the UK. In the Summer of 2000, they also played a series of festival dates in Europe, including a performance at the Glastonbury Festival, where they performed on the main stage, on Saturday night, at 9:30 pm, to a triumphant reception. I
caption: Performing in Turku, Finland in 1997
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