Pet Shop Boys: A Life in Pop

This is a documentary about the career of the British group the Pet Shop Boys.

It had a lot of interviews with other people close to the Pet Shop Boys. This made the documentary more all rounded.

In the beginning, I was very impressed by the comprehensive account of their childhood and their early career. The first four albums were covered in detail. I learnt a lot about them that I did not know. However, the recent albums were rushed through. Only a few minutes were spent on "Bilingual" and "Nightlife". "Pop Art" was left out altogether. I found this particularly disappointing. I was hoping, for example, to know about the collaboration with Kylie Minogue, but this was not covered.

Still, it was an impressive documentary compressing 20 years into 2 hours.

if you're a big fan of this endearing pop duo like i am than you will want to get a chance to view this film. well-done and excellently researched documentary about this pioneering pop duo who have been around since the beginning of the eighties. how the release of their hit single west end girls catapulted these two relative unknowns unless you count Neil being a writer for a British pop magazines, into super-stardom. from there it thoroughly trails and details the duos rise and subsequent fall from the American pop charts with the introduction of grunge music. from than on the pet shop boys music could only be heard and charted in south America and Europe which is really a shame...considering what fantastic songwriters they are. songs like being boring, dreaming of the queen, Casanova in hell come to mind. while many pop acts are mere fluff and write about the heartaches of love gone wrong or UN-requited, Neil and Chris were touching on social and political issues at the time IE. the aids crisis, gulf war, bush and Blair administration. while pet shop boys have never cared much about endearing popularity or charting number one singles, their interest clearly lies in their music and concert tours. i admired the fact that they tried their hand in a musical and performed a live rendition of the battleship Potemkin. they've also released a hard-cover book aptly titled catalogue which showcases all their album, single covers and promotional photos over the years. this documentary will also showcase a side of Chris Lowe many have not seen...his continual chatter, opinions and thoughts about the music industry and where he sees the future of the pet shop boys. added interviews from other performers such as robbie Williams, Brandon flowers from the killers, and Jake shears from scissor sisters are insightful. a great DVD.

Once the Pet Shop Boys started to have hit singles they entered their pomp rapidly having several number one singles. It all started with their first number one hit, West End Girls.

In some ways they were unlikely pop stars. They were older than the usual pretty boy pop stars and not conventionally good looking. They were also not straight. Neil Tennant was a writer for Smash Hits. Chris Lowe has studied architecture.

In terms of appearance, Lowe always seems to be hiding behind dark glasses, looking a bit bored preferring to be more in the background. Tennant seems to be the more talkative one. In some ways the band were always a little pretentious, even a little intellectual. Getting Derek Jarman to direct some of their videos, having Joss Ackland acting all weird and even making a surreal film featuring their music.

This was a good documentary on the band if you are new to them. There was nothing much here that I did not know previously. Although one American contributor noted that their success in the USA declined after the video for Domino Dancing which was a little too homoerotic for middle America.

Other musicians who contribute in this documentary are Robbie Williams, Brandon Flowers, Tim Rice-Oxley and Jake Shears.

What you can take away from this was that The Pet Shop Boys were a great band. Despite much of their music being electro-pop, they could recreate it live as I discovered when I saw them in concert once, they were fantastic.