Music Review by Natalie Homer
Quick! Name a member of the Pussycat Dolls that isn’t Nicole Scherzinger who seems to have become more famous for dating F1 race car driver Lewis Hamilton than for her music. You can’t can you?
Despite the album’s first single, WHEN I GROW UP reaching the Top Ten in 16 countries, no-one really knows who’s in the band and that’s because PCD is a brand. If you listen to this album without muso pretentiousness, it’s good. Though it would seem they needed a lot of help making this record, I appreciate cameos from stars like Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliott, as well as beats and melodies by big-name producers and co-writers like Rodney Jerkins and POLOW DA DON, because they are great artists and they make good music. R.Kelly mixes sweet and sassy on the catchy slow jam OUT OF THE CLUB which sets a plush beat against a romantic chorus and a hook from FERGIE’S GLAMOROUS. I think this is my favourite – great to sunbathe to. And finally Timbaland offers the album’s best beats, including a jazzy, mildly strange two-step on IN PERSON.
18 tracks (plus 3 bonus tunes) is perhaps a bit too long and feels like the Dolls just threw everything they had against the charts to see if anything would stick. Listen to is for what it is and for what it is, I like it. It’s catchy, well produced music you just want to listen to, not over analyze.
