Pet Shop Boys versus America by Chris Heath

Originally released in 1993, this book documents the Pet Shop Boys’ first ever tour of North America.

The book was reissued this year and now serves as a sort of time capsule, seeming ever more alien when read in the context of our current pandemic, where live music gigs are a thing of the past.

This is the show that the Pet Shop Boys toured with in 1991: Performance.

Chris Heath had full access to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe during the tour and documents behind-the-scenes bickering, technical issues and the endless radio and media interviews they had to do to promote the show as they traveled across America.

This was the era of the Behaviour album, which was released in 1990: Being Boring and So Hard.

Pet Shop Boys Versus America is sort of their literary version of what Truth or Dare was for Madonna; both peek behind the curtain of celebrity to reveal what it was like going on a world tour in the early 1990s.

The book also features images taken by the legendary rock photographer Pennie Smith.

This is a fascinating book, and I only wish that I had read it at the time it was originally released!

More Pet Shop Boys posts: Me, You and the Pet Shop Boys and Actually