Now, revealed for the first time ever, and according to Official Charts Company data, here are the Pet Shop Boys’ Top 20 most-streamed songs in the UK.
But first, a closer look at the Top 3…
MORE: See where every Pet Shop Boys song and album has charted in the UK
3. It’s A Sin
Released: 1987
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 1
Total UK streams: 40 million
A symphony of shame, It’s A Sin recounts Tennant reminiscing over his Catholic upbringing and how it influenced his feelings over his sexuality. Gloriously over-the-top and gothic, It’s A Sin manages to dance in the flames of internalised homophobia, crystallising into a place of hard-won acceptance.
It’s no coincidence, then, that Russell T Davies’ 2021 drama took its name from the song, as it looked back to the chaos of the late 80s and the rise of AIDS, with the entire felling of a generation of gay men.
2. Always On My Mind
Released: 1987
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 1
Total UK streams: 53 million
Taking a low-slung Elvis Presley weepy and turning it into a sophisticated synth ballad-banger is no mean feat, but at the very height of their creative powers, Pet Shop Boys pulled it off.
Always On My Mind stands tall in their discography, it was the Official Christmas Number 1 single of 1987, and one of the most beloved by the public too.
1. West End Girls
Released: 1985
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 1
Total UK streams: 70 million
The debut single by Tennant and Lowe as Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls’s journey to top of the Official Singles Chart was quite truncated, being re-released commercially twice before becoming their first Number 1 single (their all-time Number 1 tally now stands at four).
Inspired by the duo’s lives of inner-city London, West End Girls’s lyricism is pleasingly high-class too, directly inspired by T.S Eliot’s tour de force poem The Wasteland, with references to Lenin and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to boot.
