As the Pet Shop Boys picked up their prestigious MTV Europe Music Awards, their fellow musicians were falling over themselves to praise the duo.
The Eighties synth-pop legends were named “Pop Pioneers” to honour their decades-long career and “unique style and enduring influence”, 40 years since their first record, West End Girls, was released.
The band, consisting of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, went on notch up 22 top 10 UK hits and four No1s, selling 100million records worldwide.
But while the duo, who also performed at the Manchester ceremony on Sunday, accepted the rapturous applause from stars like Rita Ora, Shawn Mendes and RAYE, what they think of today’s pop royalty is a different matter.
Speaking away from the coveted EMAs, singer Neil, 70, gave a damning verdict on what he thinks of today’s biggest music stars, claiming their music is too “processed” and “narcissistic”.
“I find pop difficult now,” he says. “I don’t like the sound of it. I am an electronic musician so I know the sound of it but it is so processed now. I find it all narcissistic.”
And he claims that few bands were as groundbreaking as those in the 80s, a criticism he appears to extend even to rock legends Oasis, who were also honoured at the EMAs, winning the award for Best Rock act ahead of the group’s much-anticipated reunion next year.
Picking up the award Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher told the crowd: “Even on our bad day we’ll still wipe the floor with the majority of bands out there.”
But Neil, who was a music journalist for music magazine Smash Hits in the mid-80s before forming the Pet Shop Boys, says: “[The Eighties] was the golden age of pop music. The classic period was Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Tears for Fears, New Order and the start of rap music.
“It is the last great period of people trying to push the idea of a pop song. Everyone’s lyrics are weird, like Karma Chameleon or The Union of the Snake by Duran Duran. What does it mean? The eighties pushed the boundaries about what we could write about as we were not obscure.
“A lot of people think the 1990s is a golden era, with Oasis and stuff, but it seemed at the time in the 90s that people started re-writing The Beatles and looking back.
“In the 80s something exciting used to happen. But that stopped and fizzled out.”
But he saves his harshest criticism for today’s pop music. “This century pop has changed and people go to bootcamp now to write songs.
“That is interesting but you don’t get the miracle melodic development like David Bowie. You are not going to get that in bootcamp, and maybe nobody even wants that now.”
And there’s special derision for those artists who write songs about their exes – a particular trait of Taylor Swift, who was one of Sunday’s big winners, taking home four awards. “This is my complaint,” says Neil. “Writing about ‘self’ is the only subject now. To have a successful pop career now you have to have a series of relationships which are amazing and then break up tragically.
“I sometimes wonder what the other other half of the relationship feel about this.”
Neil and Chris, who performed alongside a local orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, at the EMAs, certainly occupy a unique and enviable place in pop history.
Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most successful duo in UK music history, racked up a staggering 44 UK Top 40 hits in the 80s and early 90s, including iconic like It’s a Sin and Go West.
They also found success in the US, where they are still the most successful UK act on the Billboard dance chart, behind Madonna, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Beyonce.
Not bad for a duo who were 31 and 26 respectively when they gave up their jobs to concentrate on music.
While Neil was a music journalist, keyboardist Chris was studying to be an architect, and had just designed a staircase for a Milton Keynes industrial estate as part of a work placement when the two first met.
They hit the big time with West End Girls, which came about because of Neil’s work on Smash Hits. “I was sent to New York to interview The Police,” he recalls. “I wasn’t interested in them, although Sting went to the same school as me in Newcastle.
“We’d become obsessed by this producer called Bobby Orlando, a heterosexual man who made music for gay New Yorkers. So while I was there I called him. It took a certain amount of nerve to phone up out of the blue. It was cheeky and I pushed.”
He pitched a song.
“It was West End Girls and that is how we got going really,” explains Neil. “The takeaway is ‘Make the phone call’.”
The Pet Shop Boys became known as much for their visual spectacles as their groundbreaking electronic music – but it didn’t always go to plan. When a technical glitch at this year’s Glastonbury Festival meant he had to perform solo for six songs with an empty keyboard next to him mortified Neil called it the “worst moment” of his life.
Chris, 65, remembers: “There was a problem with the screen going up and it was very Spinal Tap. It went up six inches and I could not get onto the stage. It was a bit chaotic as we didn’t know what was going on. Neil managed to get to the front of stage but there was no way I could get there.
“We were wearing masks and I tripped so I was going up the stairs on my hands and knees. Noel Gallagher was there watching the whole thing and it was live on television and I had no idea if the screen was ever going to go up.”
Neil says: “I thought ‘Is he going to be stuck for the whole show?’ and then thought ‘Oh, there is a lot of people here.’
“If it has not been for television I would have stopped it but I carried on just me and an empty keyboard. It was an awful moment. I thought people were thinking we were making some kind of point but we weren’t.”
Still going strong, the Boys released their 15th studio album this year, with a special expanded edition with four new bonus songs coming out on November 22.
“It actually is our lockdown album,” says Neil. “During lockdown we were in separate places. I would write lyrics and Chris would send me tracks and that went on over a two year period.
“Chris persuaded me to learn to program which I had never done before. I used the Garage Band app which was quite straight forward, with a YouTube tutorial. He told me which keyboard to buy and I bought one off Amazon for £70 quid.”
And the duo reveal they are already recording a new album as well as a theatre show – a genre which Neil also doesn’t hide his dislike for. He says: “The next album is different from the last three we made. It will be more orchestral and euphoric. We like the magic of euphoria as it drives us.
“My advice is don’t write a musical, just don’t do it. You are aimlessly re-writing. Some of it is thrilling as you want to hear other people perform your music, and you want to tell a story.
“Most musicals are cliches. And it’s what pop music has become these days, just musical theatre.”
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