OMG OMG

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Fucking hell, Nicole Scherzinger!

I was totally hooked on the song already but that video is just OMG amazing, the Beyoncé nods turning into something really rather sinister and entirely Nicole's own. Her eyes in the hot coals scene! Some real The Ring shit there. And her hair flailing around in the brief silhouette scene! She is so, so fierce. I love her coldness + hugely sexual combination, she's like a Jackie Collins anti-heroine or something: on the face of it dislikeable and unsympathetic (cos she doesn't want or need your affection, fools) but you end up totally in her corner, rooting her on. (The key to her other new single 'Super Villain' is that she's pretending to be a nice girl wanting a bad boy but...this is Nicole motherfucking Scherzinger and she is not-so-secretly a super villainess herself).

Also, TI is so hott. And I haven't heard a guest rap which needed to be blanked out so much since Rasheeda's stellar turn on Petey Pablo's 'Vibrate' (warning - do not seek explicit version if you were offended by the Ying Yang Twins, but be aware that this is entirely your loss).

The song also confirms Polow Da Don's status as head'n'shoulders-above-all-others r&b producer du jour, even though it's a shameless retread of that unreleased song he did for Chilli (and for that matter Kelis's 'Blindfold Me') - it's all about those monolithically doomy bass chords over the chorus.

Faster, Lead Pussycat! Kill, kill!

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also, I love how Nicole (and the PCDs) always trigger the most idiotic liberal babblings about how they're setting feminism back ten generations or some shit merely by being sexual - anyone who says something like that is revealed immediately to be a) a puritan and b) a complete div for not actually listening to the words they sing - half their songs are about wanting total independence from men! I think 'Beep' is a really on point dissection of how it feels to have been objectified by the male gaze for almost your entire life ("since I been in 7th grade", in fact, disturbingly), and Nicole's delivery alternates between sadness&alienation ("do you know that no don't mean yes, it means no", and then that really melancholy "do you know...that I know? And I don't...wanna go"), contempt ("I'mma do my thang while you're playing with your - " - who is the pathetic one in that equation, then?) and obv giving in to the temptation to tease and take advantage of the whole situation. Plus, it's endearingly retarded, which is probably will.i.am's entire modus operandi. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

Also, 'I Don't Need A Man' is the greatest song ever written about having a wank by anyone ever. Srsly.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Ha, have you heard 'Touch Of My Hand' by Britney?

The greatest LINE about wanking may be in Rasheeda's 'Georgia Peach': "you talking to a girl standing on her own two/If I want it I can do it with my own two".

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I can't believe in Britney wanking, though, whereas the PCD are older and wiser, somehow and therefore far more likely to get on with it. Britney would only do it in a confused and slightly wounded way for someone else, she's totally a dependent shagger.

Hahahaha, I always thought that line was about walking away from a guy if he didn't give good head and finding another one that did. However, now you mention it, that is indeed brilliant.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The first version of 'Georgia Peach' I heard was the clean version. For ages I thought she was talking about v innocent kissing in the chorus! It's because she sounds really tender in it, even though she's ordering him to give her v good head.

[koganbot]

Wait, you're implying that someone could possibly be wiser than Britney?

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

hot shit

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I don't quite get the jizzing over this track just yet, ILM is full of mad love for it as well. It still needs to click with me I think.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

really? I wouldn't have thought ILM would have had much time for Ni-Ni-Nicole at all (excepting rtc and Tim F). Well, that's good!

I suspect the Nicole persona is probably a stumbling block for many - this is entirely their problem, she is wonderful.

I'm also v much hoping 'Winning Women' makes the album, it is a shouty, clattery and hugely entertaining feminist rant w/ Rihanna in which they exhort women to keep their surnames and represent their cultures and buy houses in Ge-NEEVAH!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Although I like the Pussycat Dolls a lot, musically (I do take feminist issue with some of their off-CD expoundings) I've never liked Nicole. I don't like her singing style particularly (I feel it mars the songs somewhat when she makes that awful 'grooargh' noise that's supposed to be sexy, just to prove that she is really, really singing it with all her power... bleh) and I don't really find her hot at all (I prefer Melody) so I was fairly prepared to be really annoyed by her solo stuff.

However, I really like that. Tell me more of this producer- what might I know that he's done?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've heard any Pussycat Doll off-CD quotes! Though I am pushing hard for a Nicole S interview when she does promo here. I never know which the others actually are to be honest. I just think the level of vitriol which they seem to attract is indicative that they must be pretty great really.

Polow Da Don! He did 'Promise' and 'Bang It Up' off the Ciara album ('Promise' was my No 1 single of 06); 'Glamorous' and 'London Bridge' for the Ferg; 'Buttonz' for PCDs; 'Blindfold Me' for Kelis (worth comparing that to this actually - they're basically the exact same backing track, but 'Whatever You Like' and its video is no more sexual/submissive than 'Blindfold Me' and its video - yet Kelis has never been accused of setting feminism back, quite the opposite in fact); 'Like This' for Kelly Rowland; 'Throw Some Ds' by Rich Boy; and lots of others probably. His Wikipedia page probably has a full list.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Every now and then one of them comes out with a 'boys are stupid, throw rocks at them' sort of comment and that always hits my feminism button.

Ah, Kelis gets away with that sort of antics because she doesn't seem to work to be hot. Nicole has a bit of the Beyonce syndrome where it all looks calculated so it ends up seeming more pornographic/"selling sex" than is probably intended, whereas Kelis is sort of louche about it, a la Kate Moss so they both come off classier, even though of the four, Kelis and Ms Moss seem the most likely to put out.

Good lord, I had no idea the same producer was behind all of that lot. On the other hand, that's a damned good hitlist- I shall seek out the Kelis (and the Chilli you mentioned in the original post- I assume of TLC fame?) since they're the ones I haven't heard.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think Kelis kind of portrated herself as a maverick oddball auteur from the start? I remember the press calling her tha "r&b Alanis Morissette" etc (which they meant as praise). And that kind of stuck even though the Neptunes wrote all her songs and she was naked on the cover of Kaleidoscope - it's odd how the right press angle at the start of your career can set people's impressions of you in stone. Even if Nicole spent the rest of her career doing feminist rants like 'Winning Women' I still think she'd be accused of setting women's rights back ten generations, because of the PCDs' image and the, um, unsisterliness of 'Don't Cha'.

The Chilli track is called 'Straight Up' or something - I heard it on youtube. Almost certainly destined to remain in the vaults now.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

"portrated"? PORTRAYED

[confused-dazed.livejournal.com]

The video is great, but I find it hard to like this song since it's just a watered down version of "Blindfold Me." Her new single "Super Villian" is way better.


Polow is one of the more consistent producers out there (he has produced a few of my fave singles this year: Young Buck - Get Buck, Kelly Rowland - Like This, Rich Boy & Keri Hilson - Good Things, Fantasia - When I See U RMX, plus "Promise" was my #1 last year as well and "Bang it Up" by Ciara is crazy as well), but the problem (if you want to call it that) I have with him is that he doesn't really have a signature sound and he really isn't doing anything innovative per se.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

OMG 'When I See U rmx'!!!! Just d/lded that and W-O-W.

I kind of like that he doesn't have a signature sound - he has a signature SOMETHING which he puts to really good use in almost mimicking others, but doing their styles even better - most of that list I assumed were by someone else before I knew it was Polow...'Blindfold Me' is crunkish, 'Like This' fits really neatly alongside what Swizz Beats is doing these days, the Ferg tunes are in the general will.i.am style, 'Buttonz' is Scott Storchy...

[koganbot]

This is the first I've heard this. To be honest my mind wandered during the vid but that says more about my attention span than about its value as art. As for the music, I like that the sound and the singing are poppy with cold bubbles, and there're ominous blips and suspense fogrolls. Kinda doesn't come across as a song (i.e., as something one will hum while walking along the street) but it seems to work as a track anyway. This will take more than a few plays for me to have any idea what I'm going to end up thinking of it, but so far seems strong.