Pop Essays #42: The Pussycat Dolls feat. Timbaland, ‘Wait A Minute’

Hold tight as we prepare to dig deep once again for another overlooked gem of musical yesteryear on this week’s Pop Essays. This week: when is a single not a single? When it’s download only…

• Artist: The Pussycat Dolls feat. Timbaland
• Song: Wait A Minute
• Released: 24/11/2006 (on digital download only)
• Writers / Producers: Timbaland / Keri Hilson / Craig Longmiles
• Highest UK Chart Position: #108
• Chart Run: 108

Very rare, even back in the 90s and 00s, was the instance where you picked up an album and it was so rammed wall to wall with potential singles, that it sounded like a mini greatest hits collection. In a time before Spotify previews, we were left wondering aloud with pocket money of £10 or £15, whether or not to take a punt on an album based on one or two singles, only to do so and discover the singles were the sole best tracks on it, whilst the rest was filler.

Such a situation however, was not true of PCD, the debut album from the girl group incarnation of the legendary LA formed burlesque dance troupe, The Pussycat Dolls. The stats alone speak for themselves; over 9 million copies sold worldwide – 1.3 million of those in the UK alone – including five UK top 10 hits and two number one singles.

Put simply, if you were into pop music c. 2005 / 2006, and their songs weren’t on your iPod, then you quite simply weren’t living. We invested in a copy of PCD in January 2006 with our Christmas money and HMV discount vouchers, and it was money well spent for us. We distinctly remember loving several songs from the get go and were willing them to be singles, one of those being “Wait A Minute”.

The song was a fun club ready collaboration with legendary producer Timbaland – co-written by a then unknown Keri Hilson – and he provided half of the amusing call and response style repartee between himself and Nicole Scherzinger, as showcased on the chorus: “Girl, why you do me like that? / You take all my money / Can’t even call a player back, so wait a minute / Boy, why you trippin’ like that? / You think cause you’re trickin’ / You’ll get it just like that, wait a minute”.

It even ends with an incredible spoken outro section from Nicole, delivered with a knowing bit of high camp, as she wearily put the frustrated Timbaland in his place: “See I don’t want your money / Yeah I seen you rollin’ up in here in your Cadillac / But I don’t need all that (it is a nice colour though!) / What do they call you, Mr Tim Man or somethin’? / See I don’t want your cars, I don’t want your jewellery / Nah, you can’t buy this, mm mm / See you can keep that! / (Wait a minute, yeah, you can give me that back)”.

Another thing that worked in the favour of “Wait A Minute” was the fact of it appearing right before Timbaland was about to enjoy a huge period of about two years where everything he touched turned to gold, working on global chart topping singles and albums for the likes of Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, as well as his own collaborations album, Timbaland presents Shock Value, which yielded massive hits with the likes of Keri Hilson (“The Way I Are”) and OneRepublic (“Apologize”).

Alas, having an album that was so packed with future hits in waiting was, as the Dolls were to find out, as much of a curse as it was a blessing. Mainly because, after their all conquering and eyebrow raising debut chart topper “Don’t Cha”, their singles then followed a bit of an odd pattern.

Their second single was initially tipped to be “Beep”, featuring will.I.am from the Black Eyed Peas, but which was promptly shunted to become their third single the following February 2006, so it didn’t clash with the Peas’ own similar tongue in cheek floorfiller “My Humps” that was racing up the charts at the same time. So the sweet ballad “Stickwitu” became their second single instead, hitting number one in December 2005.

Then the not exactly subtle “Buttons”, remixed to a new single version featuring a guest rap from Snoop Dogg, became the fourth single in June, hitting #3. And by the time September rolled around – a year on from the release of the album – the glorious, Whitney Houston-esque throwback of “I Don’t Need A Man” had become the fifth single, albeit it was their first to miss the top 3, peaking at #7.

So when “Wait A Minute” was finally announced as being the sixth(!) single from PCD, there was a sense of both justice finally being done and wondering aloud of why it hadn’t come sooner. It also had a promo video with a surprising amount of budget thrown at it for a single so far into the album campaign, depicting the Dolls following Timbaland dressed as glamorous 60s style spies on a Manhattan subway, who start pole dancing around the subway car, cutting to scenes of them holding up traffic in downtown New York with a dance break.

But somewhere between the single being announced and the video being released, things seemed to stall suddenly. The truth of the matter was, at some point, the law of diminishing returns was going to kick in. It was just the way of it, even for their most hardcore fans to try and muster enthusiasm for a song that was now over a year old finally being released as a single.

What was complicating matters even more at this point was that, not for the first time, Nicole, who had previously been in Eden’s Crush, the winners of the first US series of Popstars, and who at one time was all set to take the female slot in the Black Eyed Peas (that ultimately went to Fergie), was still intent on trying to make it as a solo artist. Around the same time this single was being promoted, she had provided a guest vocal on P. Diddy’s single “Come To Me”, and had started work on her – ultimately aborted – debut album Her Name Is Nicole, several of the songs from which ended up being recycled into tracks on the second Pussycat Dolls album, Doll Domination, in 2008.

And so “Wait A Minute” ultimately ended up receiving one of the most undignified ways to be released as a single in November 2006; it was released as a digital download only. Just a month or two shy of all songs counting towards inclusion in the UK singles chart, regardless of if a physical CD equivalent was available, this thus meant that the single simply failed to chart.

It was only once the full lift on digital download only singles was made in January 2007, that it finally belatedly charted at a non-canon #108. Just a few weeks after that, Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right”, also produced by Timbaland, was one of the first real singles to have major success solely as a download only release. One can only wonder, if both the Pussycat Dolls and their record label had got their act together sooner, if “Wait A Minute” would have deservedly enjoyed the same success.

Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.