Neil Tennant

Neil Tennant
Tennant singing in a Pet Shop Boys concert at the 2013 Berlin Festival
Background information
Birth name Neil Francis Tennant
Born (1954-07-10) 10 July 1954
North Shields, Northumberland,
England
Genres Synthpop, dance, electropop, new wave, alternative dance
Occupation(s) Musician, singer, songwriter, music journalist
Instruments Vocals, keyboards, synthesizer, guitar
Years active 1970–present
Labels EMI
Parlophone
Spaghetti
Associated acts Pet Shop Boys
Electronic
Website www.petshopboys.co.uk

Neil Francis Tennant (born 10 July 1954) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, music journalist and co-founder of the synthpop duo Pet Shop Boys, which he formed with Chris Lowe in 1981. He also was a journalist for Smash Hits, and was assistant editor for the magazine for a period in the mid-1980s.

Biography

Early life

Neil Francis Tennant was born in North Shields, a fishing port near Newcastle upon Tyne to William W. Tennant (1923–2009), a sales representative, and Sheila M. (Watson) Tennant (1923–2008).[1] He has an older sister, Susan, and two younger brothers, Simon and Philip.[2] The family moved to a semi-detached house in Greenfield Road (opposite the corner of South Bend), Brunton Park, a relatively affluent suburb in Newcastle, shortly after Neil was born.

As a child, Tennant attended St. Cuthbert's Grammar School, an all-boys' Catholic school in Newcastle upon Tyne. Tennant's songs "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave" and "It's a Sin" refer to his early life in Catholic school and the strict upbringing there.

While at school, Tennant played guitar and cello. At age 16, he played in a folk music group called Dust, whose most popular song was called "Can You Hear the Dawn Break?" They were heavily influenced by The Incredible String Band. During his teenage years, he was a member of the youth theatre at the People's Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Early career

In 1975, having completed a degree in history at North London Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University), Tennant worked for two years as London editor for Marvel UK, the UK branch of Marvel Comics. He was responsible for anglicising the dialogue of Marvel's catalogue to suit British readers, and for indicating where women needed to be redrawn for the British editions.[3] He also wrote occasional features for the comics, including interviews with pop stars Marc Bolan and Alex Harvey. In 1977, he moved to Macdonald Educational Publishing where he edited The Dairy Book Of Home Management and various illustrated books about cookery, playing the guitar, and other home interests. Then he moved to ITV Books where he edited TV tie-in books. After having commissioned Steve Bush, then the designer of Smash Hits and The Face, to design a book about the group Madness, he was offered a job at Smash Hits as news editor of the British teen pop magazine in 1982. The following year he became Assistant Editor. He also edited the 1982, 1983 and 1984 editions of The Smash Hits Yearbook.

At Smash Hits, an opportunity arose for him to go to New York to interview The Police. While there, Tennant arranged to meet Bobby Orlando, a producer whom both he and Lowe admired. Tennant mentioned that he was writing songs in his spare time and Orlando agreed to record some tracks with him and Lowe at a later date. Orlando subsequently produced the Pet Shop Boys' first single, "West End Girls".

Pet Shop Boys

Solo appearances

Alongside his work with Chris Lowe as Pet Shop Boys, Tennant has worked on several side projects including:

Personal life

Tennant is openly gay, revealing his sexuality in a 1994 interview in Attitude magazine.[4][5] He is also a patron of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.[6] He maintains a house in London and a house in County Durham[7] in the North East countryside.[8]

In 1998, Tennant was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party.[9] However, in the 2005 general election he voted for the Liberal Democrats, citing disillusionment with Labour's ID card scheme.[10] The Pet Shop Boys agreed to personal appeals by major Conservative figures Boris Johnson and David Cameron for the group to play at the "winners' parade" taking shortly after the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Enjoying the event's atmosphere and how their stage presence turned into a well-received performance, Tennant subsequently texted Cameron's staff pushing Cameron to use LGBT scientist Alan Turing's centenary year as impetus for the British government to formally pardon Turing.[11] The formal pardon did, in fact, go through on 24 December 2013, with the related official paperwork signed by Queen Elizabeth II.

In terms of other artists' music, Tennant has praised the group The Specials and singer-songwriter Elvis Costello, highlighting the former's track "Ghost Town" and the latter's track "Shipbuilding" as protest songs successfully putting politics into pop music.[11]

Tennant has complained about ageism in the context of the music industry, stating that multiple individuals have told him that they wanted to play Pet Shop Boys songs yet could not because informal policies labelled the duo as too old.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Literally" by Chris Heath, published 1990
  3. ↑ 'Pet Shop Boys, annually (1989). 1989.
  4. ↑ Burston, Paul. "Attitude Archive: Neil Tennant's 1994 Coming Out Interview". Attitude. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  5. ↑ "For Hard-Core Petheads: The Tennant Interview In Full". The Atlantic. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  6. ↑ "Elton John AIDS Foundation patrons". ejaf.com. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  7. ↑ "I refuse to be restricted by background - or fear". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, Kirsty Young.
  9. ↑ "'Luvvies' for Labour". BBC News. 30 August 1998.
  10. ↑ "Pet Shop Boys protest at ID cards". BBC News. 1 March 2006.
  11. 1 2 3 "The Pet Shop Boys on texting Cameron and Russian homophobia". www.newstatesman.com.

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