These days, Pet Shop Boys appear to have a new motto: Just say yes. So far, it's paying off handsomely for the British synth-pop icons.

Spring has barely sprung, but 2009 is already shaping up to be a big year for vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe.

The dance-music duo are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their groundbreaking single West End Girls. They were recently honoured with a Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music -- and rewarded the crowd with a superb medley of their hits. They're scoring a ballet for the presitgious Sadler's Wells theatre in England.

Perhaps most importantly, they're releasing their 10th studio album -- appropriately titled Yes -- a pop-oriented work on which Tennant and Lowe embrace collaborators both new (like British hitmakers Xenomania and Canadian musician Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy) and old (like former Smiths member and frequent guest guitarist Johnny Marr and some dead guy named Tchaikovsky).

Amid all this positivity, erudite frontman Tennant took some time to chat with us from his London home. Here's what he had to say:

SUN MEDIA: Let's start with the title? Why Yes? It's such a simple, direct, positive word.

TENNANT: Well, that's actually why we chose it. When we were about halfway through making the album, a lot of it was sounding like what pop music is meant to sound like, and we just thought 'Yes!'

SUN MEDIA: It seems that this is a more personal album, as opposed to Fundamental, which was quite political.

TENNANT: Yeah, absolutely. With Fundamental, we sat down at the beginning with an idea of the kind of album we wanted to make. Fundamental was a concept album, really. This album is sort of like a greatest hits of the last two years. It doesn't have a single theme running through it; it's a collection of pop songs, many of them about love and relationships. It's not just that, of course; at other points it's quite experimental, really. But the songs are not linked.

SUN MEDIA: And you've got Johnny Marr back on guitar again. Is there an unspoken rule that he only appears on every other Pet Shop Boys album?

TENNANT: I hadn't thought of that! No, there isn't. But that's how it works. He'll be on the album after next. Johnny calls himself the Carlos Alomar of the Pet Shop Boys, after David Bowie's guitarist. But we have some kind of musical history. Johnny Marr, I think, likes to play pop music sometimes. The last two years, as you know, he's been writing and recording with Modest Mouse and producing The Cribs, so for him to come play with us is a change. And of course, he plays harmonica on this one!

SUN MEDIA: Congratulations on the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.

TENNANT: Thank you. Did you see the performance? I think it was one of the best things we've ever done. I think it looks great. It's a great medley -- there are 15 songs in it. And I even like what I'm wearing. It took two months to put together and I think it went down really well.

SUN MEDIA: Were you surprised to get the award?

TENNANT: We were surprised because they normally go to rock groups. And I don't think we regard ourselves as a heritage. But maybe we should. And there's nothing wrong with being a heritage artist. We were really glad they chose pop music for a change. I think maybe they chose us because it's been 25 years since our first record was released. West End Girls was 1984. We can be rather cynical about awards. But with this award, apparently it was a unanimous decision. And it felt really warm in the room that night; it's impossible to be cynical about it.

SUN MEDIA: Do you get the sense that pop music -- and especially dance music -- doesn't get the same respect as rock music?

TENNANT: Yes, I do get that sense ... Pet Shop Boys don't do serious in the style of serious. U2 -- and I'm not knocking them -- they do serious in the style of serious. And that's how people will treat them. But we do get short shrift in some quarters. For some people, we're a kind of irritation. But I don't mind that. And in some quarters, I think our songwriting is incredibly under-rated, lyrically and melodically.