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On Drake’s “All the Parties,” his voice emerges from what sounds like an atmospheric fever dream, with ethereal synths swirling his words as he leans into a familiar melody: “It’s 6, our town a dead-end world.” , he sings, with Autotune breaking his voice: “East End boys and West End girls, yeah.” Then he repeats the last line, just like the Pet Shop Boys did when they sang “West End Girls” recordings.
“West End Girls” was the British synth-pop group’s first single, released in April 1984, and became a number one hit in the US and UK in 1986 when they included it on their first album, Please. Now the group says Drake included the melody on the For All the Dogs track without their permission and that he didn’t even mention it.
“It’s surprising to hear Drake sing the chorus of ‘West End Girls’ in the track ‘All the Parties’ on his new album,” said the band wrote in a tweet. “No credit provided or permission asked.”
Representatives for Drake and Pet Shop Boys did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment in time for publication.
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Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys recorded “West End Girls” with disco producer Bobby “O” Orlando after Tennant played some of the Boys’ demos to Orlando in 1983; Tennant was working as a music journalist at the time and met Orlando during an interview with Sting for Smash Hits.
The duo took inspiration from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message, TS Eliot’s The Waste Land and James Cagney’s gangster films for a meditation on London clubbing. When the original single came out it was a minor hit. The group found new momentum after teaming up with producer Stephen Hague, who had produced “Please”, and re-recording the song. The song ranked number 65 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time and number 433 on the magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time.