Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe met in an electronics shop on Kings Road in Chelsea, London. Realizing they had a common interest in dance music, they began to work on material together in Tennant's flat in Chelsea and from 1982 in a small studio in Camden Town. It was during these early years that several songs that would later appear on future albums were created, including "It's a Sin," "West End girls," "Rent" and "Jealousy". Starting out, the two called themselves West End, because of their love of London's West End, but later they came up with the name Pet Shop Boys, a name derived from some friends who worked in a pet shop in Ealing. They said that Pet Shop Boys "sounded like an English rap group".

Their big break came in August 1983, when Tennant was assigned by Smash Hits to interview The Police in New York. The duo was obsessed with a stream of Hi-NRG records made by New York producer Bobby Orlando, known as Bobby 'O'. Orlando suggested making a record with Pet Shop Boys after hearing a demo tape from Tennant. In April 1984, the Orlando-produced "West End girls" was released, becoming a club hit in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In March 1985, after long negotiations, Pet Shop Boys cut their contractual ties with Bobby O with a settlement giving Bobby 'O' significant royalties for future sales. Hiring manager Tom Watkins, they signed with the London-based Parlophone label. In April, Tennant left Smash Hits and in July a new single, "Opportunities (Let's make lots of money)", was released, reaching number 116 in the UK. Unperturbed by the low chart position, the band returned to the studio in August to re-record "West End Girls" with producer Stephen Hague. Released in October 1985, this new version initially entered the charts at a similarly low position, but began a slow rise so that by January 1986 it achieved number one. It was subsequently number one in the USA, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, New Zealand and Norway, and sold an estimated 1.5 million copies worldwide. It remains the most-heard Pet Shop Boys song to date.

After the success of "West End Girls", Pet Shop Boys released a follow-up single, "Love Comes Quickly", on February 24, 1986. The single reached number 19 in the UK singles chart and was followed by their debut album, Please on March 24.

1987 started with Pet Shop Boys receiving both BRIT Awards and Ivor Novello Awards for "West End Girls". Later, on June 15, they released what became their second number one single, "It's A Sin". The continued success of "It's A Sin" was followed by the release of "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" on August 10.

The duo's third studio album, Introspective, was released on October 10, 1988 and was followed by the Trevor Horn-produced single "Left to my own devices", and a cover version of the Sterling Void single "It's alright" in 1989. On September 24, 1990, a new single, "So Hard", was released, and Pet Shop Boys' fourth studio album followed on October 22, 1990. Behaviour was recorded in Munich with producer Harold Faltermeyer. The album was never intended to be a dramatic change in mood to their earlier albums, but it is noticeably subdued. It included the fan-favourite "Being Boring," the second single from the album, which only reached number 20 in the UK singles chart, their lowest placing at the time.

In June 1993, Pet Shop Boys made a strong return to the UK Singles Chart with "Can You Forgive Her?". Taking its title from the Anthony Trollope novel of the same name, the single reached number 7 in the UK Singles Chart, and the iconic music video features the duo in orange body suits and tall dunce caps in a world of computer-generated imagery. The theme was continued with the follow-up single, a cover of the Village People single "Go West", which reached number 2 in the UK, with another computer-generated music video, this time inspired by the Soviet Union. The duo's fifth studio album, Very followed on September 27 and is the only Pet Shop Boys album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. For their eighth album, after toying with genres including hip-hop, they went for a stripped back acoustic sound as a complete change to the over-the-top dance music of the musical. In 2002, they released Release. Most of the tracks were produced by the duo themselves and many of the tracks featured Johnny Marr on guitar.

The dynamic of Pet Shop Boys' image lies in the duo's public personalities — Tennant is perceived as an erudite intellectual, articulate, and verbose in speech; while Lowe, now almost always seen in his trademark attire of hat and sunglasses (since as early as 1985), appears as guarded and terse but nevertheless behaves as casual, flippant and fun-loving.