Has Nicole Scherzinger Been Hogging Lead Vocal Since 2001 With Old Band, Eden’s Crush?
Last week there was a particularly telling interview with former lead singer of The Pussycat Dolls, Nicole Scherzinger.
For her VH1 Behind The Music special, Scherzinger was criticised for the way in which she explained her relationship with her former band mates Melody Thornton (who only left the revised line-up of girls in 2010 when Scherzinger quit to pursue her own solo career), Ashley Roberts (confirmed she quit on her website), Jessica Sutta (fired shortly after getting a broken rib while on tour), Kimberly Wyatt (who quit and said “I wish that it was different because I love what we do on stage. I love being a Doll, but as far as variables off-stage are concerned, I just couldn’t do it anymore. When I came out on stage, I knew what my job was and I did it to the best of my ability. I feel like I can relate to anybody in a corporate job, because it’s just a job, nothing more”) and Carmit Bachar (who left and was replaced by Asia Nitollano from Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For the Next Doll in 2007 only for Nitollano to be fired too).
In short, the other girls were “window dressing,” glorified backing dancers, who literally didn’t sing at all on their first album.
Scherzinger explained, she sang “95%” of the album “on [her] own.” This was confirmed by the producer, Ron Fair. And by Roberts. The only other person allowed to sing was Thornton who did trills on every few songs.
Scherzinger says in the video below that almost all the vocals, including background vocals, were all her own: “I love those girls, they’re like my sisters, but people don’t even know the story. They have no idea. I was in center because I was singing, I was the one singing… oh, man, I hope that I don’t get in trouble for the stuff that I say. ‘Cos I never really talked about it. But I’ll never forget, I finished the album, PCD, and Ron [Fair] and I brought the girls into the studio, and we played it for them, and it was the first time they’d ever heard the music. Do you understand what I’m saying? We played the album for the Pussycat Dolls, that’s the first time they’d ever heard the songs.”
Fair concurs with Scherzinger’s account of what happened: “Melody [Thornton] sang a bit here and there, but the records were Nicole. With the exception of an occasional ad lib, but they were Nicole. They were created with her.”
As a bonus, here is video of Cheryl Cole from X Factor USA/ UK and girl band Girls Aloud, talking about Scherzinger hogging the mic to the detriment of the Dolls.
It would appear Scherzinger, who was the first choice of Will.I.Am to be lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas, not Fergie, started hogging the microphone before the Dolls were ever formed. If you recall, Scherzinger is a reality show winner who found fame in a girl group, Eden’s Crush, created for Pop Stars (USA) in 2001. Similar to Cole, who found fame in Girls Aloud, put into a group for Pop Stars: The Rivals in the UK in 2002.
In this video from Pop Stars in 2001, Scherzinger is crying because the other girls in manufactured band Eden’s Crush are turning on her for getting so many lead vocals. She explains: “That’s probably the hardest thing to me, in a group, is to deal with that. Because you’re in a group with four other girls that you live with, and you’re with 24/7, and you don’t want to upset anybody, and you want to be a team player. But, at the same time, you don’t want to hide yourself and everything you have in here and you still want to display that.”
Finally, here’s video of Scherzinger’s 2001 Pop Stars audition and the Eden’s Crush music video for their debut single, Get Over Yourself.