The Pet Shop Boys—Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe—are arguably the most successful duo in the history of pop music. Three-time Brit Award winners and six-time Grammy nominees, they have sold more than 50 million records worldwide. Published to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the release of “West End Girls”—the single that reached number one in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Israel, New Zealand, and Norway— Pet Shop Boys Volume is the definitive catalog of the group’s visual output to date.
Newly reconfigured into a literary format, this revised and expanded edition now chronicles the entire visual output of Pet Shop Boys from 1984 to 2024. It includes the sleeve artworks and packaging; stills from every video, film, and performance; stage sets and costumes; photoshoots; publications; and merchandise. Photographs, designs, and productions by celebrated collaborators, including Mark Farrow, Wolfgang Tillmans, Martin Parr, Bruce Weber, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Zaha Hadid, and Derek Jarman, among others, are accompanied by short commentaries and captions by music writer Chris Heath. Accompanying the essay by Philip Hoare on Pet Shop Boys' practice, is a new introduction by Libby Sellers discussing the importance of Pet Shop Boys to the history of design, and a foreword by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller reflecting on the enduring impact of the music and image of Tennant and Lowe.
Contributors
Chris Heath
Author
Chris Heath is contributing editor for GQ magazine and author of the recently re-released books Pet Shop Boys, Literally and Pet Shop Boys Versus America.
Libby Sellers
Author
Formerly a curator at the Design Museum in London, Libby Sellers ran her eponymous design gallery for a decade, and was honored in 2014 by the Women of the Year awards as a Woman of Achievement in the Arts.
Philip Hoare
Author
Philip Hoare is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton and the author of biographies of Noel Coward and Stephen Tennant.
Jeremy Deller
Foreword By
Jeremy Deller is a Turner Prize–winning conceptual, video, and installation artist. His piece 'The Battle of Orgreave' was ranked second in the Guardian’s “Best Art of the 21st Century.”
