For their second number one, credit has to be given to the Pussycat Dolls for not giving us more of the same (apart from the weird spelling). After the boyfriend-stealing sass of ‘Don’t Cha’, they are now celebrating faithfulness and monogamy.
Stickwitu, by Pussycat Dolls (their 2nd and final #1)
2 weeks, from 4th – 18th December 2005
Having said that, I wouldn’t have turned my nose up at more of the same, if the alternative had to be this sappy ballad. Nobody gonna love me better, I must stick wit’ you… ‘Stickwitu’ isn’t terrible, it isn’t even bad. The slightly off-kilter drumbeat, and the toy box riff are vaguely interesting. It grows into a bit of a power ballad in the middle eight, with impressive enough vocals from leading lady Nicole Scherzinger. But on the whole this is the sort of syrupy R&B that was more at home on the Billboard charts of the time, but which had started to crop up more often at #1 in the UK by the middle of the ‘00s.
It’s also a real shadow number one, a term I first used waaaay back in 1953, when the zany ‘Hey Joe!’ provided a chart-topping footnote to Frankie Laine’s humongously successful ballad ‘I Believe’. The concept remains unchanged, despite the years and the differences in music consumption: a song that wouldn’t have been a hit without the success of an artist’s previous single. Would ‘Stickwitu’ have been anywhere near the top of the charts had ‘Don’t Cha’ not existed? I’ll stick my neck out and say no.
Another bit of credit has to go to the producers of this track for not sticking a rent-a-rapper verse on it. I’m actually surprised they didn’t and, who knows, it might even have livened things up. A remix featuring someone called Avant was released, but not recognised by the OCC. The third and fourth singles from the Dolls’ debut album did return to the usual formula, with features for Will.I.Am (‘Beep’) and Snoop Dogg (‘Buttons’). Both those songs were Top 3 hits, and were returns to the group’s bawdy, Burlesque roots.
Beyond that, there was one more album and a few more Top 10 hits, but for the fourth highest selling Western girl group of all time, and ‘the heirs to the Spice Girls bedazzled throne’ (MTV), they never quite fulfilled their potential. Nicole Scherzinger was all too keen to start a solo career (she has one solo #1 to come), and there were ‘tensions’ between her and the other Dolls. However, they have reformed twice since their split in 2010, and are currently touring as a three-piece, with Scherzinger back in the fold.
