Pet Shop Boys Would Like to Know Just Why Drake Sang ‘West End Girls’ on His New Album
On Drake’s “All the Parties,” his voice emerges from what sounds like an ambient fever dream with ethereal synths swirling his words as he latches onto a familiar melody: “It’s 6, our town a dead-end world,” he sings, with autotune blipping his voice, “East End boys and West End girls, yeah.” Then he repeats that last line, just like the Pet Shop Boys did when they recorded the song “West End Girls” close to 40 years ago.
“West End Girls” was the British synth-pop group’s first single, which came out in April 1984 and became a Number One hit in the U.S. and the U.K. in 1986 when they included it on their first album, Please. Now the group is saying that Drake interpolated the tune without their permission on the For All the Dogs track, and that he didn’t even credit them.
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“Surprising to hear Drake singing the chorus of ‘West End Girls’ in the track ‘All the Parties’ on his new album,” the band wrote in a tweet. “No credit given or permission requested.”
Reps for Drake and Pet Shop Boys did not respond to Rolling Stone’s requests for comment in time for publication.
Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe recorded “West End Girls” with disco producer Bobby “O” Orlando after Tennant played Orlando some of the Boys’ demos in 1983; Tennant was working as a music journalist at the time and met Orlando while on an interview with Sting for Smash Hits.
The duo drew inspiration from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and James Cagney gangster films for a meditation on London clubbing. When the original single came out, it was a minor hit. The group found it second wind after linking up with producer Stephen Hague, who produced Please, and re-re-recorded it. The song ranked Number 65 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time and 433 on the magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
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