Man, its tough when you’re watching mtv with your boo and the pussycat dolls comes on. Dontcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me? Course not honey. Eh, i mean, you are hot. I mean, she wishes she was hot, like you. That is, you could sing that song… to her boyfriend… Boo? Honey? Where are you going?
I hate that song. I’ve never seen a picture of the girl singing it, but that sort of shit is simply revolting. I have no problem with anybody hitting on someone who’s ‘taken’, as long as they do it respectfully and tactfully. This bullshit… just turns my stomach. From the song she sounds like a fucking skank.
The sad thing is NONE of the Pussy Cat Dolls (the singers of the song) are all THAT good looking. Some are “stripper hot” but that’s it.
For the longest time I thought the Dolls were a joke. Like a winking joke poking fun at video vixens and a pasteurized version of the burlesque revival. Especially since they occasionally did shows with celebrities as guest members (Carmen Electra and Christina Applegate for example) I really was saddened when I learned they were supposed to be legit.
So a funny joke to a barely passable girl group. Sad.
From what I understand, the burlesque dance group called the Pussycat Dolls broke up, and then some dancers and models who could sing were recruited for a new pop group under the same name. The lead singer is named Nicole Scherzinger, aka Nicole Kea, and she was from a different pre-fab pop group called Eden’s Crush, which was formed a few years ago on a WB Network reality show called Popstars. Eden’s Crush fizzled and disbanded, so Nicole got the lead singer job in the all-new, all-singing Pussycat Dolls. She is quite attractive: dancer’s body, amazingly tight abs, exotically dark and pretty due to being of Hawaiian descent.
That said, the lyrics are skanky and the song is destined to be a strip club and wet T-shirt contest anthem, I despise guest rapper Busta Rhymes, and it’s annoying that in this supposed “group,” Nicole is the only one who does any singing.
I’ve long considered analyzing this song on this board. I have no credibility as a music critic, but since manufactured pop has no real musical credibility, I’ll be ok.
First off, I do believe it is important to see the video. This song’s success is based on the video. The song itself is fluffy egotistical crap. While some might not find the pussycat girls attractive, I find the one who actually sings this song very attractive. Everyone has their own perception of beauty. The only reason I ever heard this song was the lead singer caught my eye.
But catching my eye can’t decieve my ears. So let’s take a listen to what we have here.
The song begins with a rap laid down by Busta Rhymes. Now admitedly, I have called rap “bad poetry set to someone else’s music.” But in my more charitable moods, I can grudgingly accept that some rap requires a bit of talent to pull off. Chuck D would be my example of such a rapper. But as Public Enemy is fairly old school at this point, many rap fans may fairly cast doubt upon my rap knowledge. However, I think most rap fans would agree that Busta’s little mumbling intro to this song lacks rhythm, intonation, and fails to evoke any actual interest. The lead singer eventually just starts to sing over him as the rap dies out with little notice.
The lead singer actually can sing. She doesn’t show any real range or depth in this song, as this song has none to offer, so we can’t fairly judge her actual talent. Nor can we be sure that the pretty girl doing the singing actually sings this or that if she does, her voice hasn’t been put through a multitude of filters to ensure it sounds in key.
The lyrics and refrain of the song actually plod along at a fairly dull pace. To make the song sound more interesting and complete, the empty space between the lyrics is filled with background singers or instrumentation. That, in of itself, isn’t a bad thing. Many decent songs do the same filler technique. The problem comes when the filler is crap. The background vocals during the song’s refrain don’t sound terrible (I suspect they have the lead vocal helping to strenghten them) but elsewhere the background vocals are hideously weak, airy, monotone dredge. If you tune the radio up and listen carefully, something I do not recommend, one of the background vocalist sounds like a male voice trying to pull off a female voice and not quite succeeding. The horns that cue in sound like they were cut and pasted in. I doubt that any horn musicians ever intentionally played for this particular song.
It has been a cruel decade for us heavy rock fans and this song trots out another practice that has become a plague upon the music scene. That is, the substitution of guitar solos with a rap break. Although I must admit, I’d rather rap get stuck with the solo for this particular song. No great guitar work would ever emerge from this.
So Busta comes in strong… well at least somewhat loud. He talks quickly, fails to annunciate and bores everyone until the lead vocalist just gives up waiting for him to finish and starts to sing over him again. Really, I’ve never encounted a pop tune with a rap solo in which the rap solo seems so ignored. There’s usually at least some pretend excitement generated about it in the song, but here it just trails off and dies. I’d prefer it die a harsher death instead of simply whimpering out of existance, but at least it does go away. The song then recycles its refrain and at this point, you’ve been listening too long.
This concludes my analysis of “Don’ Cha.” Keep in mind, I’m a musical idiot which makes me just qualified enough to review this drivel.
The version played on the radio doesn’t even have Busta’s raps in the beginning and middle, I guess to make it more palatable for top 40 stations that are afraid of playing hip-hop. So to fill space in what would be an empty section in the middle of the song, they have Nicole (the lead singer) breathlessly speaking (not even SINGING):
Repeat that four times, exactly. Bo-RING.
Oh, interestingly enough (possibly for no one), this song was recorded a few years ago by a singer named Tori Alamaze, and it failed to become a hit for her. The Pussycat Dolls rerecorded it, and I’m sure their handlers were banking on the Dolls’ sex appeal to sell the song this time around. I’m not sure what Tori Alamaze looks or sounds like, but apparently all of Nicole’s vocal inflections are pretty similar to hers, like she studied the original track and tried to duplicate it completely.
This was the first hit from google images for Tori Alamaze.
If I had a girlfriend, I’d wish she was hot like that.
Was it a few years ago? They were playing her version here for a few months before the Doll’s version came out. One day I was listening and said, “Wow, she doesn’t sound quite the same anymore.” Ah, after a lil’ research, here’s the time line:
It then goes on to talk about how the Doll’s song is considered by all to be crappier than the original.
And, for what it’s worth: the Doll’s were a sort of joke. Carmen Electra started the dance troop, they played at the Viper room, and they caught on. Before long, celebs wanted to be special guests, their shows sold out, on and on. They also went from being one “troop” to several across the country.
Electra dropped out (and has since started a new troop). The “singing dolls” came together and here we find that stupid song.
And I would like to agree that most of the girls are not that attractive (stripper-hot was a good description). The lead singer is eye catching because she is tan and exotic (and has a nice body), but the other girls are meh.
The red headed one always has a stupid look on her face, too.
OK, I didn’t know the original version of the song was such recent history. But I always liked the idea of a modern sexy burlesque revue that was so cool, A-list female celebrities were dying to perform with them.
If you don’t like pop music, I am not going to be able to convince you here, but if you even vaguely like good R&B/pop, check out the original version of this song. The Pussycat Dolls destroy what was originally an incredible track. I couldn’t stand the thing whenever I heard the Pussycat dolls do it - like, instant chanel change - but when I heard Alamaze’s version, I was stunned to find out how good the song really is.
It was produced by Cee-lo, who is a quite respected Atlanta rapper - he’s worked with Outkast, Dungeon Family, Timbaland, and, I think, Bubba Sparxxx - and as he’s known for his Outkast like creativity, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he came up with a really great beat for this track. It’s all icy-cold and spacious and a million miles from the vapidity of the Pussycat Dolls’ version.
Blackclaw - you are right in saying that Busta Rhymes adds little to the track. His rapping is not memorable in the slightest, here, but it is wrong to suggest he has no talent. He’s done some really great stuff in the past - Gimme Some Mo’, for instance, or Break Ya Neck, but it’s been a long time since he’s done anything worth speaking of. The last guest track he was on that I really liked was Mariah’s I Know What You Want, and even there the appeal was equally a result of Mariah and the production as it was Busta’s verses.