This is a part of a series of books published, yes indeed, annually. It basically catches you up on what the Pet Shop Boys have been up to since the previous edition.
So there’s a news section about everything they’ve released…
When there’s a new album, there’s a thorough diary about how they wrote the songs for the album.
Then they go through the album, track by track, and we learn further things about the recording, and also about the lyrics. Bullet for Narcissus, for instance, turns out to be about Trump. Which should perhaps have been obvious with lines like “Oh Narcissus / It’s so delicious / to watch his make-up run”.
(I usually put the album on during this section of the book.)
And finally, there’s usually a longer reportage of something they did, and we get the Neil & Chris comedy routine.
These books are only available for a couple months each year from the Pet Shop Boys shop, and then you have to get them on ebay, which is what I do, because I always forget to buy them.
So, yes, this is very much for people who are extremely into the Pet Shop Boys. It’s very nerdy, but also quite amusing. It’s also striking how little you learn about them — while they’re very chatty, they actually say very little about their private lives. It’s also striking how focused these books are: There are never any articles by third parties talking about how great their music is or anything: It’s very measured, quite distanced and controlled.
These books are written by Chris Heath, who wrote two books about Pet Shop Boys on tour in the early 90s, and the style was established already then.
The Pet Shop Boys are very consistent.
Pet Shop Boys. Annually. 2024 (2024) by Chris Heath (3.80 on Goodreads)