Jealous lovers, lonely romantics, hopeless drug addicts, people in denial. Meet the cast
of the Pet Shop Boys' latest album, "Nightlife," an elegant and witty exploration of the agony and ecstasy of the dance club demimonde.

Who better than the Boys to  chronicle this universe of nocturnal pleasure and pain?  For  the last 14 years, the British duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe has operated  the thinking man's dance act — intellectuals operating in a genre normally thought to serve only the body. "From the start," Tennant says, "we set out to make dance music with the sort of lyrics you'd find inrock." But only on "Nightlife" has the group completely focused on the milieu that most often plays its music. "We always had the night in our songs,  going back to 'West End Girls,'" Tennant says of their first No. 1 single in '85, which saluted English prostitutes. "But this time we took our inspiration from the albums that Frank Sinatra made in the '50s, like 'Wee Small Hours of the Morning,' where he's lamenting his lost love."               

Welcome Back The Boys feel so strongly about the album that they're touring behind it in America for the first time in eight years. (The show comes to Hammerstein Ballroom this Thursday and Friday for sold-out nights; a third is likely to be added.)  The group's last New York performance, at Radio City in 1991, has become the stuff of legends. It featured scores of dancers, musicians and backup singers decked out in a berserk array of costumes and wigs. It's the closest pop has yet come to the production scale of opera. Tennant promises something more "streamlined and elegant" this time, though the show still will feature visual projections, dancers and odd frocks.  To get the right look, the Boys employed architect Zaha Hadid to design a startling, modular set. The two-hour show features lots of older songs,  with frequent infusions of new ones, connecting the group's long and surprising career. Though the Pet Shop Boys started out as part of the British synth-pop trend of the '80s — along with the Eurythmics and Depeche Mode — the duo soon expanded its style to work in everything from orchestral pieces to Brazilian rhythms (on the last LP, "Bilingual") and country music (as in the new song "You Only Say You Love Me When You're Drunk"). By the 1990s, Tennant and Lowe lost much of their pop audience, even as they endured in the dance world.               

Sexual Preference Over the years, they have formed their strongest bond with gay audiences. Their albums have become recognized as the ultimate musical expression of modern, urban gay life. But the stars weren't out publicly until the mid-'90s. "In the '80s, when we were pop stars, I didn't want to be out," Tennant says. "I like it when they all discuss whether you're gay or not. It adds to the mystique and it means people interpret the songs in different ways. When you become gay-identified, you are, in some ways, less interesting." Fans might dispute that, but either way, Tennant maintains his lyrics hardly confine themselves to gay life. "It's true, we've written a lot about AIDS,  like in 'Being Boring' and 'Your Funny Uncle.' But I often pretend to be someone else when I'm writing. The new song 'Boy Strange' may sound gay, but the inspiration was two girls I know whose lives have been ruined by picking up men who are gorgeous, who then went on to f--- up their lives." The characters on the new album express the joyous and sinister sides of club culture.

"Vampires," Tennant says, "is about people taking K [a pet tranquilizer]. "I saw a friend of mine on K and thought it was so dehumanizing." Then there's "New York City Boy," which celebrates the thrill of nightlife. The song, which serves as a show-stopper on the tour, sounds like a more dignified version of the Village People.  Several years back, the Boys covered the older group's "Go West." "It's that male vocal choir sound that I happen to like," Tennant says of the earlier gay act. Perhaps the most explicitly gay song on the album is "In Denial," about a gay father who owns a bar that his 20-year-old daughter (from an earlier heterosexual marriage) disapproves of. It's also the most theatrical song on the album,  with Tennant singing the part of the dad and Kylie Minogue as his daughter.                 Expanded Horizons In fact, the song comes from a new musical the Boys wrote to be produced in London next year,  with a book by Jonathan Harvey (who penned the gay coming-of-age movie and play "Beautiful Thing"). It's a small play with a cast of 12, with Tennant as the father.

"We wanted to be part of rescuing the theater from things like 'The Civil War,' 'Les Miserables' and Andrew Lloyd Webber," Tennant says. "They're appalling. People tend to think of the stage as a camp thing, but there's so many things you can do with theater." In the meantime, Tennant and Lowe have their tour and an ever-growing legion of fan clubs connected by the Internet. "There's this ridiculous community of fans out there. There's a Pet Shop Boys site in Ukraine! With the exception of R.E.M. and maybe Oasis, white acts don't mean a thing in Southeast Asia or Chile. We do." No doubt it's the universality of the club experience that unites them. Ironically, Tennant says he himself seldom goes to clubs. "I don't like to be up all night," he says. "I like the daytime. It's healthier."