In Depth Pet Shop Boys Podcast

Episode 38 – Obscure: After the Event United by a shared love of one band, Graham and Chris close Season Six with their most personal episode yet - a sun‑drenched, queue‑length, bladder‑testing, heart‑thumping deep dive into Pet Shop Boys’ Obscure concerts at Camden’s Electric Ballroom. What begins as a simple “after the event” recap quickly becomes a full‑blown oral history of the week London tur...

With Volume - Pet Shop Boys’ complete visual history - finally landing, Graham and Chris open the book and step straight into four decades of meticulously crafted pop iconography. Using the anniversary of Please as their start point, they trace how the duo’s visual world was forged even before chart success. They begin with their earliest photo shoots: Eric Watson’s ripped T‑shirts and tennis racq...

With Pet Shop Boys preparing to dive deep into their catalogue for five intimate Obscure shows at Camden’s Electric Ballroom, Graham and Chris roll up their sleeves for their most forensic fan investigation yet: can two amateurs really predict the ultimate non‑singles setlist? First they uncover the historical clues - the 40th anniversary of Please and a rediscovered 1986 photoshoot - before follo...

Graham and Chris return to 1986 for the second half of their 40th-anniversary Please deep dive, placing Pet Shop Boys’ debut into the wider world it landed in - Cold War tension, Chernobyl panic, post-Live Aid earnestness, brick-sized mobile phones and a pop landscape buzzing with the likes of A‑ha, Five Star and Madonna. From there they go track‑by‑track, and enter Advision’s world of talking cal...

Unboxing the opening chapter of their 40th-anniversary super deluxe celebration of Please, Graham and Chris rewind to PSB Year Zero - the moment an “ex-Smash Hits journalist” met a “weird architect” and began politely reshaping pop. They trace the stories of five pivotal Please people who helped turn Neil and Chris into Pet Shop Boys: eight-track mentor Ray Roberts; Hi-NRG maverick Bobby O, maxima...

For their season finale, Graham and Chris go full‑throttle at Electric, the album that jolted Pet Shop Boys back into ‘banging and lasers’ mode — and inspired the Pod Cast Boys to embrace the same rule‑breaking, high‑voltage fun. Following Neil, Chris and Stuart Price’s alphabetical recording method, they present the full A–Z of Electric, diving into its wild mix of influences from Italo disco and...

In the first instalment of what promises to be an occasional Further Listening series, Graham and Chris delve into the Pet Shop Boys’ b‑side and fan favourite The Resurrectionist. Joining them is historian and author Sarah Wise, whose acclaimed book The Italian Boy inspired Neil’s macabre lyric about 1830s body snatching and the grisly trade in corpses. A devoted Pethead herself, Sarah reflects on...

It’s the second Disco 5 In Depth episode, and Graham and Chris’s wayward moves take them from the dancefloor to the art gallery - where they encounter orgasm addict Sam Taylor-Johnson and rodent fanatic Wolfgang Tillmans. Meanwhile, at the Disco 5 launch party, it’s time for some difficult questions: would you rather be a live Sex Pistol or a dead Pet Shop Boy? Is Paul Weller gay? What did Olly do...

Disco 5 has landed, and Graham and Chris are remixing everything — even themselves. In part one of this two‑episode celebration, they rewind through the Disco series’ chaotic legacy, spar with Noel, redefine Tina, unmask Claptone, and spotlight Carroll Thompson, Soft Cell and The Hidden Cameras as they uncover surprising connections across Pet Shop Boys history. But - Disco Demolition alert - what...

In a special celebratory 30th episode, Graham and Chris countdown their favourite 30 Pet Shop Boys songs - each a new excuse to fall down the usual rabbit holes of stories and memories! Girls Aloud, Tom Watkins, Dame Anna Neagle, Zelda Fitzgerald, Trevor Horn, TS Eliot and Kermit the Frog each make an appearance, and there’s also time to reappraise those negative reviews of Behaviour, the collapse...

Graham and Chris celebrate 40 years of Pet Shop Boys fans and fandom with a special Petheads episode of In Depth! Armed with nearly 100 lovingly-completed listener surveys, the stories and memories come thick and fast. From favourite songs and treasured items to fan creativity and real-life encounters with Neil and Chris themselves, they share your thoughts and feelings in a heartfelt first-of-its...

Graham and Chris make a midnight return to the garden shed to unleash the full horror of the In Depth Halloween podcast! As they exorcise the ghosts, vampires, skeletons and will-o-the-wisps haunting the Pet Shop Boys catalogue, unholy guest appearances abound - from Joan of Arc and Ed Gein to Count Dracula and Francisco Goya. Expect a quest to uncover the spookiest PSB album, a chilling tally of...

There’s an end-of-term feel to the In Depth season finale as Chris subjects Graham to the full technicolour horror of the Pet Shop Boys “Colours” quiz! With his co-hosting position on the line, Graham comes out fighting with some of his brightest, boldest Pet Shop facts to date. But with Chris moving the goalposts (“that’s indirect!”) and Graham getting increasingly desperate (“I’m going colour-ad...

In the second half of their Discography double bill, Graham and Chris dive “Double In Depth” into the remaining nine tracks. The Introspective singles take them raving with Frankie Knuckles and the dawn of Acid House, while Behaviour sees them smoking about cigarettes and harping on about harps. There’s even chance for them to show off Graham’s amateur percussion skills, and Chris’s even more amat...

Graham and Chris celebrate the blue vinyl reissue of double album Discography by going “Double In Depth” to trade some of their most obscure facts yet. From the first record alone, they unearth early draft lyrics, an old BBC Two documentary, an Elvis TV special, the 1988 UK singles chart, and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine - while also examining the roles of both the saxophone and Pink Floyd i...

Whether it’s a catastrophe or a bourgeois construct, Pet Shop Boys have much to say on love. And so do Graham and Chris - first putting their own love for the band under the microscope to try and uncover where love becomes obsession. Then comes the lyrical deep-dive, unpicking all the ways Neil “Man of Mystery” Tennant crafts a love song, before Chris “Intense Urges” Lowe derails things and we all...

In their second Actually episode, Graham and Chris unearth the stories behind some of Pet Shop Boys’ most loved songs, with tales of paranoia, privatisation, puppets and Pavarotti. There’s a comprehensive breakdown of inspirations and collaborators - from Bobby O and Ennio to Cameo and Gazebo - and analysis of everything, including the kitchen sink. By the time the last train pulls out of King’s C...

In the latest of their album deep-dives, Graham and Chris rewind life’s cassette to summer 1987 to set the scene for the arrival of Actually. Graham’s teenage diary shines new light on the headlines and music charts of the day, before the album’s upfront singles are comprehensively unpacked, with a little help from Jonathan King (boo!) and Ed the Duck (hurrah!). After deconstructing the sleeve and...

Graham and Chris turn TV hosts to present a special edition of This Is Your Life, calling out Pet Shop Boys’ 10 greatest achievements from the famed Big Red Book. Career highs recalled include having their first 12” available in Soho’s Record Shack, rescuing Dusty and aiding the drive to pardon Alan Turing, as well as subverting UK institutions and rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty. There’s...

With the tour that nearly never began now threatening never to end, Graham and Chris don their robo-tuning-fork-rabbit-ears to consider what Pet Shop Boys fans really want from a greatest hits show. Deep cuts are welcome - unless it’s to the singer’s thumb. Stories are shared from Hull, Rome, Koko and Funny Girls, and there’s talk of theme parks, toilet breaks, inflatable beds and popstar dreams....

In the second part of their Nonetheless double-bill, Graham and Chris go track-by-track, meeting a cast of characters along the way including James Ford, Rudolf Nureyev, Oscar Wilde, Les Petites Bon-Bons, Bowie, Cardi B, Brandon, Kylie, Putin, Ted Lasso, Kraftwerk, Tracey Emin, Spitting Image, and Taylor Swift. There’s also time to discuss first plays, formats and nudity in PSB lyrics, before gett...

In the first part of a new album double-bill, Graham and Chris inadvertently go so In Depth talking about Nonetheless, they don’t even have time to talk about Nonetheless. Nonetheless, there’s loads to say on life since Hotspot and the excitement of the campaign build up, including Pet Shop Boys on both big and small screens, singles, artwork, fonts, photos, titles, labels, haircuts, Johnny Marr,...

“Let’s do it, let’s break the law!” In an In Depth first, Graham and Chris leave the (un)comfort of the garden shed to take the train to London on a Very Big Pet Shop Boys adventure. Visiting places immortalised in PSB history and song lyrics, the podcast pair stop off at classic PSB landmarks to nurse their blisters, download their journey and recall London gigs and events attended over the years...

Graham and Chris set the controls to 1999 to immerse themselves in one of Pet Shop Boys’ most polarising releases. Echoing Nightlife’s celebration of both night owls and homebirds, Chris’s nocturnal flashbacks cover Creamfields and culottes, while Graham settles down to experience a total (solar) eclipse of the heart. Fright wigs, goths, vampires, insomnia, early internet fandom and the small matt...

Graham and Chris answer the killer question “who’s your favourite Pet Shop Boy?” by attempting to curate a complete history of “early Neil”. From a hatred of football to a love of the theatre, In Depth gets under the skin of Neil’s childhood influences which helped shape the PSB sound and attitude. Plus: Beatles! Bowie! Zithers and whimsy! Never-ending redundancy money and what were the key factor...