15 June 1987: Pet Shop Boys release the single “It's a Sin” - the lead single from their second album Actually. By the end of June - #1 UK Singles Chart (three weeks), #9 Billboard Hot 100, #1 in France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, New Zealand. Total global sales by end 1988 - 2 million copies. The song is Neil Tennant's (born 1954) autobiographical account of Catholic school in Newcastle in the 1960s. The lyric is a direct charge against Catholic upbringing for “making every joy a sin”. The Derek Jarman-directed video uses gothic stained glass and Tennant dressed as a monk. One of the angriest and yet most danceable tracks of the 80s, and one of the rare direct critiques of religious upbringing ever to hit the UK top 10.
Pet Shop Boys before “It's a Sin”
Neil Tennant (born 10 July 1954, Newcastle) and Chris Lowe (born 4 October 1959, Blackpool) met in 1981 in an electronics shop on King's Road, London. At the time Tennant was an editor at Smash Hits (British pop magazine), Lowe was studying architecture. A shared interest in New York hip-hop and electronic music brought them together.
The duo came together in 1982. A first contract with Epic Records, but the first single “Opportunities” (1985) flopped (#116 UK). A 1986 re-release through Parlophone went better: “West End Girls” hit #1 UK and #1 Billboard in January 1986. The album Please (1986) sold 2.5 million copies.
Work on the second album began in August 1986. They again chose Stephen Hague as producer (who had done Please), with extra mixing by Julian Mendelsohn. The first single off the album was “It's a Sin”.
An autobiographical text
Tennant wrote “It's a Sin” in December 1986. He himself described the song as a direct indictment of St. Cuthbert's Catholic Grammar School for Boys, which he attended from 11 to 18 (1965-1972). In a 1987 Q Magazine interview Tennant described the school atmosphere:
“We were told everything was a sin. Dancing was a sin. Sex was a sin. Laughter was a sin. Looking at girls was a sin. The music we loved was a sin. By 16 I was convinced I was a fundamentally bad person. Only at 25 did I realise they had made me believe this. It's a Sin is what I wanted to say to my teachers but couldn't say then”, - Neil Tennant, 1987.
The Latin text at the intro is a real Confiteor from the Catholic Mass: “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti... quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”. Tennant knew it by heart - he had recited it for twelve years. For the track he recorded it with echo and reverb at SARM East studios, creating a gothic effect.
Two years after the release, in a 1994 NME interview Tennant came out as gay. That made the interpretation of “It's a Sin” more transparent: the song was not only about Catholic upbringing but about how that upbringing formed guilt in a gay teenager of the 1960s.
Tracking at SARM East
Recording took place at SARM East Studios (the same room where Trevor Horn cut FGTH, Yes “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, Art of Noise). December 1986 - January 1987. Budget: £180,000 (one of the most expensive pop records of the year).
- Fairlight CMI Series III - ORCH5 intro stabs, choral pad
- Synclavier II - programmed strings and electric piano
- Roland Juno-106 - verse pads
- Oberheim Xpander - bass line
- E-mu SP-12 - drum machine with church bell samples
- Yamaha DX7 - chorus ornamentation
- Neve V Series 48-channel console
- Studer A820 24-track
Stephen Hague insisted on a “dramatic” mix - with sharp dynamic shifts, pauses and loud choruses. That was unusual for a pop single of the time and made the track feel “cinematic” in the listener's ear.
Derek Jarman's video
The video was directed by Derek Jarman (1942-1994) - a British director known for arthouse films about gay culture (Caravaggio, 1986). Budget: US$230,000. Shot at Hampton Court Palace and Shepperton Studios in May 1987 over 5 days.
The concept - an inquisition trial of Tennant (dressed as a monk). Gothic stained glass, burning candles, procession of monks in black. Jarman included several shots of a bare back and flagellation - the most controversial element. BBC and MTV Europe aired an edited version.
Jarman in a 1988 interview said: “It's a video about how religion disfigures childhood. I went through the same thing as Neil. I wanted the video to be as direct as the lyric.”
Numbers
- UK: #1 UK Singles Chart (28 June - 18 July 1987, three weeks); silver
- US: #9 Billboard Hot 100; #1 Billboard Dance Club
- Canada: #1 RPM, two weeks
- France: #1 SNEP, three weeks
- Germany: #1, two weeks
- Netherlands: #3
- Ireland: #1, four weeks
- Australia: #2
- Total global sales: 2 million copies
- Album Actually: 7 million copies worldwide; 3× platinum UK
Spotify 2024 - over 520 million streams. YouTube video - 195 million views. In 2022 the track got a second life: Russell T. Davies's 2021 Netflix series It's a Sin, about London's 80s gay scene, used the song as the title theme, and single sales jumped 450% in the month after the series.
Catholic response
Archbishop of Westminster Basil Hume published an open letter in The Tablet in August 1987: “This song distorts Catholic teaching. Our faith does not teach that "everything is a sin". Mr Tennant presents a caricature of the Catholicism of his youth.”
Tennant replied via The Guardian: “I'm describing what I was taught in a specific school in Newcastle from 1965 to 1972. The Catholic Church as an institution may have taught otherwise. But the teachers at my school taught it this way.”
The argument ran about a month and cemented the track's reputation as socially provocative. That only increased sales.
What “It's a Sin” gave pop
The track showed: a pop song can be a direct social-political critique and a #1 hit simultaneously. Before “It's a Sin” critique of religion in pop was rare - Depeche Mode's “Blasphemous Rumours” (1984) was underground, John Lennon's “Imagine” (1971) gentler. After “It's a Sin” it became clear: such conversations could be held openly on mainstream radio rotation.
Related: “West End Girls” Pet Shop Boys, “Smalltown Boy” Bronski Beat, Trevor Horn and ZTT. Pet Shop Boys continue to release albums in 2024 - 14 studio albums since 1986. In 2024 Tennant is 70, Lowe is 65. Their partnership is the longest unbroken one in British pop music. “It's a Sin” remains their most politically sharp single and the only one the Catholic Church publicly argued against.