Artist · chart history · #74 in alternative artist polls · #426 in indie & aaa artist polls
Pet Shop Boys
Band Chelsea United Kingdom Formed 1981
Pet Shop Boys formed in 1981 in Chelsea, United Kingdom. Pet Shop Boys has 188 chart appearances on 99 radio countdowns from 24 stations on RockLists, spanning 1984–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “West End Girls”, which appears on 52 lists with a best position of #11. In total the artist has topped 1 countdown. The station that charted Pet Shop Boys most often is KROQ (Los Angeles, CA), with 42 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 1987.
Pet Shop Boys formed in London in 1981: Neil Tennant singing, Chris Lowe on keyboards, and between them a new idea of what a pop group could be, clever, ironic, melancholy and utterly danceable. They soaked up Hi-NRG, Italo disco and the new sounds of New York hip-hop, and came out with synth-pop that had the wit of a novel and the pulse of a nightclub.
"West End Girls" set the template: cool, moody and hypnotic over a rumbling electronic beat, and it went to number one both in Britain and on the Billboard Hot 100. The debut album Please, in 1986, added "Suburbia", "Love Comes Quickly" and the sardonic "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)". Actually in 1987 was even grander, with "It's a Sin", a thundering, operatic blast, "Heart" and "What Have I Done to Deserve This?", a duet with Dusty Springfield. Their synth-pop reworking of "Always on My Mind" made four UK number ones in all, and with five US top 10 singles in the '80s they were part of the Second British Invasion.
They never stood still. Introspective in 1988, with "Domino Dancing", took them into house music, Behaviour in 1990, with "So Hard", mixed orchestral and acoustic colors into their synthesizers, and Very in 1993, with "Can You Forgive Her?", pushed into eurodance and techno. A cover of "Go West" became one more hit, and later records took them into Latin pop, trance and full-blown EDM. Yes arrived in 2009.
The numbers are staggering: 42 top 30 singles in the UK, 22 of them top 10, more than 100 million records sold, and a place in the 1999 edition of The Guinness Book of Records as the most successful duo Britain's music scene had ever produced. They have won three Brit Awards, including Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2009, and earned four Grammy nominations. In 2016 Billboard named them the top dance duo or group in the history of its club chart, where they have logged 11 number ones, and in 2024 they picked up the Pop Pioneers award at the MTV Europe Music Awards. On the countdowns, "West End Girls" and "It's a Sin" still glitter.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Pet Shop Boys on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | West End Girls | 52 | #11 | – | 1984 | |
| 2 | What Have I Done To Deserve This? | 25 | #36 | – | 1987 | |
| 3 | Opportunities (Let's Make Lot's of Money) | 23 | #3 | – | 1985 | |
| 4 | It's a Sin | 23 | #11 | – | 1987 | |
| 5 | Always on My Mind | 17 | #7 | – | 1988 | |
| 6 | Suburbia | 7 | #1 | 1 | 1986 | |
| 7 | So Hard | 5 | #16 | – | 1990 | |
| 8 | Can You Forgive Her? | 6 | #56 | – | 1993 | |
| 9 | Domino Dancing | 4 | #47 | – | 1988 | |
| 10 | Love Comes Quickly | 4 | #59 | – | 1986 | |
| 11 | Heart | 4 | #33 | – | 1988 | |
| 12 | Rent | 2 | #17 | – | 1987 | |
| 13 | Go West | 1 | #18 | – | 1993 | |
| 14 | Why Am I Dancing? | 1 | #17 | – | 2025 | |
| 15 | Absolutely Fabulous | 1 | #42 | – | 1994 | |
| 16 | Being Boring | 1 | #440 | – | – | |
| 17 | Miracles | 1 | #434 | – | – | |
| 18 | Did You See Me Coming? | 1 | #669 | – | – | |
| 19 | Where the Streets Have No Name (tie) Spirea-X - Speed Reaction (tie) | 1 | #83 | – | 1991 | |
| 20 | Left to My Own Devices | 1 | #84 | – | 1988 | |
| 21 | Why Don't We Live Together | 1 | #91 | – | 1986 | |
| 22 | North End Girls | 1 | #435 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Year-end chart timeline
Combined year-end countdown points per year. Taller bars mean more songs placing higher across more stations.
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