Pussycat Dolls ‘Doll Domination’ (Interscope)

BURLESQUE pop troupe Pussycat Dolls are back with their second album, a record that is filled with vapid, formulaic R&B and dance tunes, which as always with modern girl-groups, prioritizes style over substance.

‘Doll Domination’ includes 16 tracks pretty much all of which are filler and none of which contain the sass and club-savvy of their Cee-Lo penned debut single ‘Don’t Cha’. Coming across more like a brand than a band, Pussycat Dolls are about as sexy as your granny’s knickers.

Like most of today’s bland, scantily clad female pop acts, it’s the producer that is the true star. And Pussycat Dolls are taking no chances in that department as they have drafted in big guns such as Timbaland, Rodney Jerkins, Polow da Don and Sean Garrett, with guest appearances from Snoop Dogg, R Kelly, Missy Elliott and Cee-Lo, to ensure they stay top of the charts.

Brimming with soulless, bump-and-grind ‘slapper pop’, ‘Doll Domination’ shows no signs of personality or charisma. It’s a total stinker that reeks of desperation as every garish pop formula is thrown into the production pot in the hope that some crap will stick!

Calculated and generic, the Dolls prove on their horrible sophomore album that they have limited vocal ability and are devoid of any true star qualities. Destiny’s Child these girls are not!

Throughout much of this album Pussycat Dolls try and replicate the formula that brought them to our attention in 2005 by rewriting their biggest hit ‘Don’t Cha’ with meagre and embarrassing results.

Tasteless lead single ‘When I Grow Up’ is a vampy club banger with breathy Britney Spears style vocals built on Rodney Jerkins’ pumping beats. Bereft of any human emotions, this camp and heavily-treated pop tune about craving fame is a shameless rehash.

‘Whatcha Think About That’, despite the efforts of Polow da Don and Missy Elliott is pure filler. ‘Out of the Club’ featuring R Kelly is sickeningly trite with all its cooing mating calls and slushy, romantic chorus. ‘In Person’ contains more of the same sappy and conventional balladry. While ‘Happily Ever After’, yet another horrid tale about being mistreated by a deadbeat boyfriend, is a mid-tempo clunker, which possesses about as much depth as a paddling pool.

‘Doll Domination’ is another revolting pop record filled with pointless and one-dimensional songs about broken hearts and heading to club with the girls. Pussycat Dolls are robotic, manufactured pop tarts with nothing new or liberating to say. This is absolute codswallop!

(1/5)

It’s ladies’ night every night as gentlemanly Ne-Yo calls the tunes

Ne-Yo

‘Year of the Gentleman’

(Mercury)

THE third album from R&B star Ne-Yo is an impressive and refreshing collection of heartfelt love songs.

The dapper 28-year-old stands out from sexed-up R&B stars such as Usher and R Kelly as he opts to take the novel approach on ‘Year of the Gentleman’ of treating the ladies, well like ladies!

You won’t find any mention of ‘bitches’ or ‘hoes’ on this chivalrous ballad-heavy record that harks back to days when Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr ruled the hit parade. What we get on ‘Year of the Gentleman’ is a man who worships women, a man that doesn’t believe in demeaning, dissing or treating the fairer sex badly in anyway, which is only proper order, and wonderfully refreshing to find in today’s bawdy pop world.

Like the stars of the Rat Pack era, whom Ne-Yo obviously idolises, he is a true showman with a silky smooth crooners voice and a knack for blending fast beats and slow jams to astonishing effect. By mixing winning grooves with tinkling pianos, lush string arrangements, clarinets, harpsichords, guitar-heavy chord progressions and his ethereal falsetto, Ne-Yo has created a masterful R&B classic.

He oozes strength and confidence on the album’s tales of love, heartache, lust, contemplation and surrender. Yeah sure, it can be a bit sappy in places but overall ‘Year of the Gentleman’ is a soul-pop gem that embraces the magic of The Beatles and Stevie Wonder’s best work.

Subtle, sensitive and refined, songs such as ‘Closer’, ‘So You Can Cry’, ‘Lie To Me’ and ‘Miss Independent’ are filled with heart-on-the-sleeve, genuinely stirring emotions that are elegantly and decisively crafted.

His main strength as a songwriter is that he is not afraid to appear weak as he uses a no-frills approach to drive his point home. “She’s so much better than me/ I’m so unworthy of her,” Ne-Yo declares on ‘the gloriously gloomy ‘Why Does She Stay’.

‘Year of the Gentleman’ is a celebration of gallantry and the perfect soundtrack for courting the ladies. Let’s hear it for the boy!

(3/5)

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