THESE BOYS AREN’T THE CRITICS’ PETS

Neil Tennant, of the sizzling Pet Shop Boys, likes to needle critics. Most of them don’t like his music, but then he doesn’t like most critics.

The group’s atmospheric disco hit “West End Girls” is the point of contention. Fans love the single--it went to No. 1 on the new Billboard pop chart--but many critics have been gunning for it, attacking with their heavy artillery. Nor have they been very kind to the debut album, “Please”--loaded with disco material of course--that’s nearly in the Top 10--No. 12--after just one month on the pop chart. The problem is that most critics regard disco (or dance music, as they call it now) as one-dimensional noise pollution.

When the subject of critics arose, Tennant just laughed. “I love to give them a hard time,” he said devilishly, talking as usual at superspeed. “In America, I proudly go around and say to these critics that we’re a disco group. I know they hate disco. We kind of rub their faces in it.

“I don’t like the way they turn up their noses at dance music. Who do they think they are? I don’t like their patronizing attitude. If you’re not Husker Du (a critical favorite) or somebody like that, they think you’re insignificant. These critics approach music like books, like book collectors. They don’t listen with their ears. You never get a sense that they like music.”

“West End Girls,” which is part rap, really has been taking a bum rap from critics. In addition to a mesmerizing beat, it does have an alluring, almost haunting quality. So does “Suburbia,” “Two Divided by Zero” and most of the other material on the album. To me, the Pet Shop Boys’ moody, evocative music is a refreshing departure from funkified disco.

A hip Englishman with a caustic wit, Tennant, 31, normally prides himself on not taking things too seriously. Yet he was taking this issue very seriously. Maybe because it’s so close to home. You see, Tennant used to be a rock critic.

“I tell everyone this,” Tennant said a bit huffily. “I was not a rock critic. I was a pop writer. Don’t include me with them .”

While Tennant and his partner, Chris Lowe, were in London, trying to launch the Pet Shop Boys, Tennant supported himself by writing for an English teen/pop journal called Smash Hits.

“Music critics hated Smash Hits,” said Tennant, an editor/writer for the magazine from 1982 to early 1985. “They see it as commercial pap for teen-agers, mainly teen-age girls. But I don’t like their snooty approach to Smash Hits. It has a sense of humor. Those critics don’t.”

Though Lowe, a keyboards player and co-writer of all the duo’s music, was not at the restaurant interview, Tennant talked extensively about him. Lowe, 26, is an architecture student who got sidetracked into music.

“He went to college for seven years,” Tennant said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he went back to architecture one day. It’s the kind of thing you go back to when you’re 40.”

Tennant credits Lowe, a disco fanatic, with turning him on to dance music: “When I met Chris in 1981, I wasn’t a big disco fan. I was more into new wave. I learned to like disco because of him. I used to like the Bee Gees and stuff like that but none of the hard-core disco.”

When they met, Tennant was just dabbling in songwriting. A career in music journalism seemed more likely. But Lowe energized him: “Chris was an incredible catalyst for me. We immediately started writing songs for each other. And it had to be dance music because he was so into it.”

With an American disco producer, Bobby O, the Pet Shop Boys recorded “West End Girls,” which was released in early 1984. In some countries it was a minor hit. Locally, KROQ played it extensively. But their budding career hit a legal snag. It took a year for them to get out of their contract with Bobby O. Then they were free to sign with EMI Records, which issued their debut album about six weeks ago. They’ve been the rage of pop music ever since.

Remember Al Stewart, the British singer whose “Year of the Cat” was a smash in late 1976? His voice was a seductive, mysterious, almost monotonous purr. Tennant sounds just like him. When “West End Girls” first started storming up the chart about two months ago, many assumed--since radio stations often don’t announce the artist--that Stewart, a venerable folkie, had turned to disco.

Telling Tennant he sounds like Al Stewart won’t endear you to him. It’s like accusing him of sounding like Tiny Tim. “I know who Al Stewart is,” he said rather icily. “I know people say I sound like him. It’s hard for me to say. It’s not the kind of music I listen to.”

Tennant became the duo’s singer by default. Lowe, it turned out, doesn’t sing at all. “He’s very self-conscious about it,” Tennant explained. “He would never sing in front of anyone. He doesn’t like people watching him sing.”

Maybe that’s why the duo has only performed twice so far. But that’s going to change. The Pet Shop Boys are touring Europe this fall and America next spring.

“I’m not worried about Chris having problems with being comfortable onstage,” Tennant said. “He’ll get himself together and do what he has to do.”

Tennant has some reservations of his own about performing: “Some people are naturally extroverted about being on stage but I’m not. It’s not that I’m scared; it’s just alien to me.”

Suddenly he started laughing. “This must sound so weird. It sounds like two guys who don’t want to go on tour. Whatever our problems are we’re going to tour. We’ve come too far to let anything get in our way now.”