Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)

1986 single by Pet Shop Boys

"Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" is a song by English synth pop duo Pet Shop Boys from their debut studio album, Please (1986). It was released as a single in 1985 and re recorded and reissued in 1986, gaining greater popularity in both the United Kingdom and United States with its second release, reaching number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and number 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100. After a Super Bowl ad in February 2021, featuring the song, it re entered the charts claiming the Billboard Dance/Electronic Digital Songs No. 1 spot on 27 February, 2021, among others.

The song was written during the Pet Shop Boys' formative years, in 1983. According to Neil Tennant, the main lyrical concept came while in a recording studio in Camden Town when Chris Lowe asked him to make up a lyric based around the line "Let's make lots of money". The first version of the song, recorded with the duo's first producer, Bobby Orlando, was not released; upon signing with record label Parlophone, they re recorded the song with J. J. Jeczalik (of Art of Noise) and Nicholas Froome. The original single release charted at number 116 in the UK, to be exceedingly outdone by the number one spectacle of the second release of "West End Girls" in multiple countries. With producer Stephen Hague still on board from that release, a new single version for the duo's debut album, Please, was mixed with reprogramming done by Hague and re recorded vocals from Tennant. The second release of "Opportunities", following the album's release, resulted in better chart performance. It is the only single from the band to chart higher in the US than the UK, becoming the duo's second top 10 single in the US, peaking at number 10, and just missing out (number 11) in the UK. In Australia, the first version was the one to chart (although outside the top 40). Please also included a brief, cacophonic track titled "Opportunities (Reprise)", which was the original middle section to the song proper before it was edited out.

The lyrics depict, in Tennant's words, "two losers". The song is written from the perspective of a man who describes himself as being intellectual and educated. The lyrics are addressed towards another character, identified as having "looks" and "brawn", and who is invited to join the song's protagonist in a scheme to "make lots of money". Tennant has made it clear that the schemes are doomed to failure. The protagonist's claimed accreditations, a PhD in mathematics from the Sorbonne and knowledge of computer programming, are conceited fabrications. The punchline of the song, he says, is that "the people in it are not going to make any money". The lyrics' meaning is taken at face value by some listeners, and this subsequent interpretation of the song as a materialistic anthem receives mixed reactions. The satirical interpretation, on the other hand, has cemented the Pet Shop Boys' reputation as ironists for many, to the band's chagrin since often their more sincere songs are ignored as a result. The Arther Baker remix from Disco became the opening theme music of the BBC fashion programme The Clothes Show from the second season in 1987 (the original 1986 theme was Five Star's "Find the Time (Shep Pettibone Remix)"). This continued for a decade until 1995 saw a fully instrumental re recording of the song, "In the Night '95", for the purpose of replacing the old theme.

The music video for the first single release was directed by Eric Watson and Andy Morahan. A Cadillac stands in an underground parking garage, the headlights switching on by themselves as Lowe walks away from it. The cover of a ground level service hatch in front of the car vanishes, leaving a rectangular hole in which Tennant materialises, standing with only his head and shoulders visible. He is dressed in a hat, eyeglasses, and a suit by British fashion designer Stephen Linard with a dollar sign pin on the lapel. As he sings amid occasional washes of steam from the car, his face begins to jitter and his neck inflates in similar fashion to a frog. Lowe appears at intervals, wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket and standing/walking around the garage. At the end of the video, Tennant's body disintegrates to dust within his suit, leaving it upright on a coat hanger and his hat on the pavement. The suit disappears as Lowe drives away in the car. Watson was partly inspired by the images of preachers in Wise Blood, the film adaptation of the Flannery O'Connor novel of the same title, in designing Tennant's appearance.

For the re release, Polish director Zbigniew Rybczyński was recruited. Tennant wears a suit, hat, and white gloves, while Lowe is dressed as a manual labourer in a dirty shirt, red baseball cap, and jeans with a pair of work gloves stuffed in the back pocket. As Tennant sings, paper money showers onto him and Lowe from above and a background of city skylines and clouds scrolls past, rendered as neon outlines. Duplicates of the two appear repeatedly, passing objects back and forth that represent their characters' respective statuses, such as a brick, sledgehammer, briefcase, stack of books, and top hat.