Pet Shop Boys
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Pet Shop Boys trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pet Shop Boys are the rare pop act who made cleverness danceable. Neil Tennant sings in a cool, deadpan voice, Chris Lowe stands almost motionless behind the keyboards, and between them they have put wry, literate songs into the charts on both sides of the Atlantic since the middle of the 1980s. Guinness once listed them as the most successful duo in British music history. This quiz covers the whole story: how the pair met and what they did before fame, the chart-toppers and the albums, the cover versions that became some of their best-known records, and the long list of stars who have sung or played with them. There are questions on their videos and stage shows, their film and theatre projects, and the producers and designers behind the scenes who shaped their sound. It is written for fans who know every B-side and for casual listeners who can hum the choruses. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a story worth repeating.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Before pop fame, Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant was an assistant editor at which British pop magazine?
Smash Hits
Smash Hits sent Neil Tennant to New York in 1983 to interview Sting, and he used the trip to hand the duo's demo tape to a producer he admired.
Q 02Which 1960s star sang with Pet Shop Boys on the 1987 transatlantic number two What Have I Done to Deserve This?
Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield had not agreed to sing it for the duo's debut album, and they would not record it with anyone else. The hit revived her career.
Q 03Which American disco group first recorded Go West, the song Pet Shop Boys took to number two in 1993?
Village People
Village People released it in 1979. After the Pet Shop Boys cover, football crowds across Europe set chants to the tune, among them fans of Arsenal, the club Chris Lowe supports.
Q 04Pet Shop Boys first played their 1987 Christmas number one on a TV special marking ten years since which star's death?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley was remembered in the ITV programme Love Me Tender. The duo chose a song for the show, then decided to release their synth-pop cover as a single.
Q 05Pet Shop Boys' 1993 album Very came in an orange CD case nicknamed after which toy?
Lego
Lego lent its name, unofficially, to the orange case with raised bumps, which was designed by Daniel Weil of the London design firm Pentagram.
Q 06Which English actor played a vampire in the video for Pet Shop Boys' 1988 number one Heart?
Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen's vampire ends the video by leaving with the bride of singer Neil Tennant. It was filmed at Mokrice Castle in Slovenia.
Q 07Pet Shop Boys rode cycle-driven chariots in pointed hats at the 2012 closing ceremony of which London sporting event?
The Olympic Games
The Olympic Games closed with the duo circling the stadium as they performed their first number one to a global television audience.
Q 08Pet Shop Boys made a 1994 Comic Relief single with Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, named after which sitcom?
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous samples started the idea in the studio, and the record came out under the sitcom's name, not the duo's own.
Q 09Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant spent two years as a production editor for the British arm of which comics publisher?
Marvel
Marvel UK hired Neil Tennant after he finished his history degree in 1975, years before he turned to music journalism and then to pop.
Q 10What did every Pet Shop Boys studio album title from 1986 to 2024 have in common?
A single word
Each was a single word, a habit Neil Tennant calls a Pet Shop Boys signature and compares to E. E. Cummings writing only in lower case.
Q 11Which Pet Shop Boys single, a rap inspired by Grandmaster Flash, topped both the UK and US charts in 1986?
West End Girls
West End Girls first appeared in 1984 as a club record made with a New York producer. The duo re-recorded it a year later and watched it climb slowly to number one.
Q 12Which 1987 Pet Shop Boys number one did Jonathan King accuse of copying the Cat Stevens song Wild World?
It's a Sin
It's a Sin led the duo to sue Jonathan King, win damages and give the money to a medical research trust.
Q 13Which song, already a hit for Willie Nelson, gave Pet Shop Boys the UK Christmas number one of 1987?
Always on My Mind
Q 21Which producer of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's hits made the 2006 Pet Shop Boys album Fundamental?
Trevor Horn
Trevor Horn had first teamed up with the duo in 1988 on Left to My Own Devices, the first song they ever recorded with an orchestra.
Q 22Which guitarist, who worked with Neil Tennant in the group Electronic, played on Pet Shop Boys' 2002 album Release?
Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr played electric and acoustic guitar on seven of the ten tracks, on an album where the duo left dance music for a stripped-back sound.
Q 23Pet Shop Boys shared the bill on the 2022 Unity Tour of North American arenas with which Manchester band?
New Order
Always on My Mind spent four weeks at the top in the duo's synth-pop version, even though it was left off the album they released that year.
Q 14Pet Shop Boys' 1987 Christmas number one kept which band's festive duet with Kirsty MacColl at number two?
The Pogues
The Pogues climbed to number two after performing Fairytale of New York on Top of the Pops a week before Christmas, but could not get past the duo.
Q 15Pet Shop Boys produced the 1989 album Results, with its hit Losing My Mind, for which American singer?
Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli took their dance version of a Stephen Sondheim song from the musical Follies to number six in the UK.
Q 16Which British film director made early Pet Shop Boys videos, including Rent, and staged the duo's first tour in 1989?
Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman made films that were projected behind the costumed singers and dancers on that tour, which visited Hong Kong, Japan and Britain.
Q 17Which Victorian author wrote the novel that gave Pet Shop Boys the title of their 1993 hit Can You Forgive Her?
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope's book was one Neil Tennant had recently read, and he used its title as the starting point for his lyrics.
Q 18Pet Shop Boys premiered their new score for which Soviet silent film at a free Trafalgar Square concert in 2004?
Battleship Potemkin
Battleship Potemkin was screened in the square, long a gathering place for political protest, while the duo played with the orchestra Dresdner Sinfoniker.
Q 19Pet Shop Boys turned Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Most Incredible Thing into which kind of stage work in 2011?
A ballet
It became a ballet at Sadler's Wells in London, choreographed by Javier de Frutos, and won an Evening Standard Theatre Award.
Q 20Which stage musical did Pet Shop Boys write with playwright Jonathan Harvey, opening at London's Arts Theatre in 2001?
Closer to Heaven
Closer to Heaven opened to mixed reviews and closed that October, but new productions of it have been staged in London several times since.
New Order co-headlined twelve arena dates in Canada and the United States. Both acts have made records with the same producer, Stephen Hague.
Q 24Pet Shop Boys premiered A Man from the Future at the 2014 BBC Proms as a tribute to which British mathematician?
Alan Turing
Alan Turing's life was told in a piece for orchestra, choir, electronics and narrator, which the duo wrote with his biographer Andrew Hodges.
Q 25Which American pop star sang with Pet Shop Boys when they took the Outstanding Contribution prize at the 2009 Brits?
Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga took the guest vocal in a medley of the duo's hits, and has said she listened to them regularly while making her debut album.
Q 26Pet Shop Boys remixed Hallo Spaceboy and performed it at the 1996 Brit Awards with which rock star?
David Bowie
David Bowie asked Neil Tennant for the remix, and the new version added a disco sound and lyrics about Major Tom, the astronaut of Space Oddity.
Q 27Which British pop star recorded the duet She's Madonna with Pet Shop Boys for the 2006 album Rudebox?
Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams also had the duo produce a second Rudebox track, a cover of a tribute song called We're the Pet Shop Boys.
Q 28Pet Shop Boys co-wrote the 2009 top-ten single The Loving Kind for which British girl group?
Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud were offered the song after their producer noticed Chris Lowe was lukewarm about it for the album the duo were making with the same production team.
Q 29Which Australian pop star sang the duet In Denial with Neil Tennant on Pet Shop Boys' 1999 album Nightlife?
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue sang the part of a daughter whose father comes out to her, and later performed the song on her own Showgirl tour.
Q 30Pet Shop Boys produced which singer's 1992 cover of The Crying Game for the Neil Jordan film of that name?
Boy George
Boy George's version, with Neil Tennant on backing vocals, came out on the duo's own Spaghetti Records label and reached number 15 in America.