Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 44 minutes ago
This is the second version of "West End Girls" by British pop duo Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Recorded in 1985 under the EMI label, and using new synthesis keyboard technology to create the music, the release topped the charts in both the UK and the US, and became a popular dance song as well. According to Neil Tennant, lead vocals and writer, the rap inspired song was influenced by Grandmaster Flash's rap protest hit "The Message", T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, and a gangster move starring American actor James Cagney. Tennant's lyrics were concerned with class differences and the pressures of inner-city life that he experienced growing up in Newcastle upon tyne, and those seen in London where the duo was formed. All of these influences have caused diverse opinions about the song. Cited as a highlight in their career, "West End Girls" won Best Single at The BRIT Awards, and Best International Hit at the Ivor Novello Awards in 1987. In 2005, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters gave to West End Girls the Ivor Novello Award for Song of The Decade between the years 1985 and 1994. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 12th favourite 1980's #1 in a poll for ITV.
This is the second version of "West End Girls" by British pop duo Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Recorded in 1985 under the EMI label, and using new synthesis keyboard technology to create the music, the release topped the charts in both the UK and the US, and became a popular dance song as well. According to Neil Tennant, lead vocals and writer, the rap inspired song was influenced by Grandmaster Flash's rap protest hit "The Message", T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, and a gangster move starring American actor James Cagney. Tennant's lyrics were concerned with class differences and the pressures of inner-city life that he experienced growing up in Newcastle upon tyne, and those seen in London where the duo was formed. All of these influences have caused diverse opinions about the song. Cited as a highlight in their career, "West End Girls" won Best Single at The BRIT Awards, and Best International Hit at the Ivor Novello Awards in 1987. In 2005, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters gave to West End Girls the Ivor Novello Award for Song of The Decade between the years 1985 and 1994. In 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's 12th favourite 1980's #1 in a poll for ITV.
