It would be hard to argue against the fact that Eminem is a controversial dude. With songs about killing his girlfriend and his mother being a drug fiend, the guy is just asking for trouble. And few things have gotten Marshall Mathers into hotter water than his unfavorable depiction of homosexuality in his music.
While many people have publicly decried Eminem’s point of view (with the notable exception of Elton John, who actually performed onstage with Eminem last year), I’ve yet to come across any songs by gays or lesbians that directly strike back at Eminem on his own turf.
Until now. The upcoming album by the openly gay dance/pop duo the Pet Shop Boys contains a song called “The Night I Fell In Love,” in which a young homosexual boy attends a concert by a rap star. After the show is over, the two go back to the rapper’s hotel room, and some hot lovin’ ensues.
Eminem isn’t explicitly mentioned in the song, but lyrics like “hey man, your name isn’t Stan, is it?” and “we joked about Dre and his homies” pretty much spell out the intent.
Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant explained to MTV news that “Eminem’s defense of the homophobic lyrics on his albums has always been that he’s not speaking as himself, he’s speaking as a character … I thought it would be quite interesting to take that method and just to imagine a scene where a boy meets a famous rap star backstage at his concert and is surprised to discover he’s gay and ends up sleeping with him. Just to present rap in this homosexual context.”

In related news, the Pet Shop Boys are very funny people.
Fans of weird, psychedelic, grandiose pop bands that have guest-starred on “Beverly Hills, 90210,” rejoice: The Flaming Lips will release their follow-up to 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin” in July.
This is where it gets weird. The new album will be called “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and will feature songs such as “Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)” and, of course, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, parts 1-3.”
Now, The Flaming Lips have always been a strange group of folks (remember “She Don’t Use Jelly”?), but perhaps this time around they’ve gone a bit loopier than usual. It’s like that episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer decides to eat the baking soda that’s been sitting in the fridge for a decade or so and trips out violently. I think that the Lips are on some serious decade-old baking soda stuff here.
It’s irritating when a band that you really enjoy takes forever to put out a new album. What’s even more irritating is when a band is actually working on this new album but the singer decides that he wants to work on an inferior side project instead, thereby delaying the long-awaited album even further (previous example: Tool offshoot A Perfect Circle).
This is the situation with the Foo Fighters, who are still hammering away on their first album since 1999’s “There Is Nothing Left To Lose.” The new album was supposed to come out at the end of spring, but first Foo Dave Grohl is messing it all up.
Seems that Dave had so much fun playing the drums on the upcoming album by Queens of the Stone Age that he decided to actually join the band on a part-time basis. So now Dave will be touring with QOTSA this summer, and the Foo Fighters album has been pushed back to September.
It just makes me want to cry.