Pet Shop Boys have spoken out about their namecheck in Eminem’s diss track ‘Can-I-Bitch’, joking about the good “humour” of the rapper.
Released on ‘Straight from the Lab’ bootleg album, Eminem’s ‘Can-I-Bitch’ – a diss track aimed at fellow rapper Canibus – included Eminem mimicking the sound of a car hitting someone and the lyric, “What was that? Pet Shop Boys”, implying he and producer/mentor Dr Dre had mowed down the 2017 NME Godlike Genius award recipients.
‘Can-I-Bitch’ is thought partly to be an answer-song to Pet Shop Boys’ ‘The Night I Fell in Love’, the penultimate song on their 2002 album ‘Release’ – detailing the story of a teenage boy who has a one-night-stand with his rap idol after a gig.
Despite Eminem never being explicitly mentioned by name, it includes lyrical references that appear to point to Marshall Mathers as inspiration – including ‘Over breakfast made jokes about Dre and his homies’, and ‘Then he joked: ‘Hey man, your name isn’t Stan, is it?’ (as a nod to Eminem’s 2000 chart-topping single).
Reacting to ‘The Night I Fell In Love’ in 2002, Dr Dre hinted at Eminem’s forthcoming response-track when he commented: “We needed another song anyway. They just gave us a concept. Oh my God, I hope they can stand the backlash. That’s funny as hell.”
Although Pet Shop Boys never received any feedback directly from Eminem, frontman Neil Tennant remembered watching Dr Dre being played the track for the first time on MTV.
“At the time, when the album ‘Release’ came out, Eminem was white-hot and they played it to him on MTV News – when watching MTV was a thing! He listened to it and said: ‘He’s going to fucking kill them!’”, Tennant said to NME.
“But then he did fucking kill us when he did a track called ‘Can-I-Bitch’ where he goes to Canada with Dr Dre to kill a rapper or something – I can never quite fully understand all these abuse things – and in the process he runs over the Pet Shop Boys.”
Bandmate Chris Lowe added: “He does it very humorously!”
Tennant continued: “Robbie Williams thought he was tipping his hat to us, because we explained at the time that we accepted Eminem wasn’t homophonic, he was just playing a character, and I said that in the song I’m playing the character of someone who has sex with Eminem. And is not female. And evidently a schoolboy”
He added: “We were obsessed with Eminem at that point. Eminem was a fantastic pop star in that late-‘90s/early-’00s period. That was written when ‘Stan’ was out which is an amazing record.”
Check out our full interview with the band here, where they also discuss four decades in music, falling out with Drake and why It’s A Sin was “painful to watch”.
Pet Shop Boys are due to release their 15th album ‘Nonetheless’ on Friday (April 26). In a four-star review, NME wrote: “Marrying the street level to the grandiose was always the Pet Shop Boys’ MO from the start, and over forty years into the career, ‘Nonetheless’ is the sublime sound of pop’s standard-bearers continuing to hone their craft.”
They’ll play an intimate show at London’s Koko on May 26, in addition to their 2024 ‘Dreamworld’ greatest hits tour dates. Visit here for tickets and more information.