Great News: Neil Tennant says copy of Smash Hits inspired new music
Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant has said seeing an old copy of Smash Hits magazine in a vintage shop inspired him to move into classical music.
The 70-year-old, who was once an editor at the magazine, will release classical album Sleep Of Reason alongside Mark Springer on 25 April, after the pair got in touch with each other after Tennant read an old review of Springer’s band Rip Rig And Panic, which also featured singer Neneh Cherry.
Tennant explains: “One afternoon in January 2023, I was walking through the old town of Folkestone in Kent and stopped to peer in the window of the record shop there.
“They often display old music magazines and, on this particular day, a 1982 copy of Smash Hits was there, opened at the Singles Of The Fortnight page.
“The reviewer of the singles was me. I took a photo of it on my phone.
“One of the records I’d reviewed, over 40 years previously, was the then latest single by the art, pop, jazz band Rip Rig And Panic and I mentioned liking the B-side, a solo track by Mark Springer, the band’s pianist. I looked on Spotify and the track was available to stream. I still liked it.
“I searched online for Mark Springer and ended up buying a couple of CDs from his online store, having by now discovered that he had become a composer of string quartets, works for piano, film soundtracks and even operas.
“I’d had to give an email address for confirmation of my CD order and couple of weeks later Mark Springer emailed me asking if I was ‘the’ Neil Tennant because a couple of years previously he’d tried to approach me about a collaboration.
“And so, after a few more emails I ended up agreeing to write the lyrics and sing them on his piece for string quartet, Sleep Of Reason, evoked by a series of etchings from the Spanish artist Francisco Goya, one of my favourite artists.”
Springer, who also scores soundtracks for television and film, told the PA news agency he had first thought about working with Tennant “several years ago”, and laughed about how the West End Girls singer accidentally bought three copies of one of his albums.
He told PA: “I wrote and I said, ‘hi, are you Neil Tennant? The singer Neil Tennant?’, and he said, ‘yeah’.
“And I said, ‘well, it’s funny, but I’d had this idea to write a piece for you several years ago, and I couldn’t get hold of you, and he said, ‘oh, that sounds really interesting, why don’t you send me something so that I can have a listen?’.
“Immediately he was in, he was excited, because he obviously likes my work, so he discovered it a bit more.
“The funny thing was he actually bought three CDs of the same album, and that’s the only reason I contacted him, because I thought if it had been a regular guy called Neil Tennant, I never would have said it, but because he bought three.
“And the funniest thing is that he bought three by accident, through PayPal, and he’d asked PayPal could you have two of them back? And they never did exactly. So, in the end, he bought three CDs off me, and he couldn’t give the other two back.”
Springer joked that he has still not refunded Tennant for the two extra CDs.
Beginning his career in the Pet Shop Boys with keyboard player Chris Lowe with the release of West End Girls in 1984, Tennant has gone on to have four UK number one singles and one UK number one album with the pop duo.
