The Pussycat Dolls ft. Busta Rhymes – ‘Don’t Cha’

15 September 2005

To borrow a social media trope, I was today years old when I discovered ‘Don’t Cha’ by the Pussycat Dolls is a cover version; it had been originally released in 2004 by former OutKast backing singer Tori Alamaze. What’s more, its chorus is taken from a 1988 track called ‘Swass’ by none other than Sir Mix-A-Lot, the philosopher poet of the ample derrière.

Sure enough, that’s one big-ass chorus alright. A lot of the success—and the charm, let’s be fair—of ‘Don’t Cha’ is down to that snappy, sassy hook lyric. Other positives here are the star-making turn by Dolls leader Nicole Scherzinger, who duly takes her opportunity with a gleeful confidence, and the sleek production lavished on a track that’s clearly marked out to be a smash hit.

That’s as far as my goodwill stretches, though. Humungous chorus aside, the verses are pitifully slight and yet also painfully try-hard; the doubled-up vocal lines only exacerbates their paucity. Busta Rhymes is shoehorned in here as some sort of Jay-Z kingmaker hype-man, but no Jay-Z he. His flat, formulaic rap sounds like it’s copied and pasted in from some other record, and it’s the weakest and least essential thing about ‘Don’t Cha’. I can’t say the Pussycat Dolls scale such middling heights again, but in this plague year of 2005 we ought to be thankful for a killer chorus. Now, if only we could finally get a chart-topping single from one of the better girl groups of the time.