Pussycat Dolls

PCD arrived in 2005, including Don’t Cha, Stickwitu, Buttons, I Don’t Need a Man and Wait a Minute. Don’t Cha gives a repeated question the role of a hook, with Busta Rhymes supplying a contrasting guest appearance. Stickwitu takes a different route, allowing a softer melodic performance and a slower pace to carry the song.

The difference is important within an act so strongly associated with choreography. Nicole Scherzinger’s lead voice can provide a clear focal point while supporting vocals, the instrumental arrangement and the performance around it create the broader identity. The album moves between those possibilities rather than maintaining one uninterrupted level of rhythmic pressure.

The second album followed in 2008. When I Grow Up makes ambition into an emphatic pop statement, while I Hate This Part and Hush Hush allow a more openly wounded performance into the same musical world. The later dance treatment Hush Hush; Hush Hush is a different version of that material, so the ballad and the more expansive club arrangement are useful to hear separately. The catalogue’s first two albums document a particular moment when contemporary R&B production, electronic pop and a highly visual group presentation were working together. Their craft often lies in small decisions: a gap before a response, the weight of a bass entrance or the precise point at which a backing phrase becomes the part everyone remembers. The visual performance amplifies a rhythmic structure already present inside the recording.