“So Hard” by Pet Shop Boys

"So Hard" opened the account for Behaviour, Pet Shop Boys' fourth album, arriving as its lead single in September 1990 with Harold Faltermeyer producing. Neil Tennant's lyric is a sharp little domestic drama: a couple sharing a home, both cheating, both pretending otherwise, until each catches the other out. It reached No. 4 in the UK, cracked the top three in a string of European countries, and went all the way to No. 1 in Finland.

Chris Lowe said their version leaned back toward Giorgio Moroder, all retro instruments, until David Morales lifted a chord progression from the middle section and turned it into a pumping house track. When Frankie Knuckles spun that mix at a party after a Los Angeles show, Tennant wondered aloud why they didn't make records like that, and Lowe had to tell him it was them.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.