'Bad Girls' change look, sound with sophomore effort
Issue date: 3/24/08 Section: Arts & Culture
Fresh off the heels of wrapping production of the second season of MTV's Making the Band 4, Diddy and girl group Danity Kane introduce fans to a new look and sound with the release of sophomore effort Welcome to the Dollhouse, released March 18.
On Welcome to the Dollhouse, the group members-Dawn, Aubrey, Aundrea, D. Woods and Shannon-break out of the Bad Boy R&B mold and set off to claim their place in pop music history.
And with stronger vocals and a bevy of hit-making producers and writers on board, this album may just be the first of the Bad Boy arsenal to truly cross over.
Leading their quest to take over the charts, the quintet's first single, Damaged, was released digitally on Jan. 29. Since the album's release, Damaged debuted at 50 on Billboard's Pop 100 Airplay chart for the week of March 29.
The single's music video, which premiered March 11 on MTV's Total Request Live and mtv.com, peaked at number one on the iTunes Top Music Videos chart and has been watched more than 400,000 times on Google's YouTube.com.
DK's recipe for Dollhouse was simple-more up-tempo club bangers and less ballads. And executing this mission are tracks like the Danjahandz-produced Bad Girl, Pretty Boy and
Striptease, as well as 2 of You and Lights Out, all produced by in-house Bad Boy producers including Mario Winans, Bryan-Michael Cox, Wyldcard and Diddy himself.
The girls knock these fast-paced songs out of the park, as each of them have strong single-potential and will predictably all get major play on club dance floors across the country-making the album a perfect offering for summer consumption.
The Missy Elliot-featured Bad Girl will potentially become the "getting-ready-to-go-out" anthem ladies will rock all summer.
Over a futuristic beat, Aubrey coos, "Look in my eyes covered in Maybelline/Looking like something fresh out a magazine/I can be part of your deepest fantasies/You're the detective, come solve my mystery."
The song's chorus only adds to this vanity, as the ladies repeat in unison, "Maybe I'm just a bad girl." Surely, Diddy's somewhere smiling and nodding in agreement.
Lights Out and Striptease have a particular charm that fans will definitely love-even though their subject matter teeters along the risqué factor.
Ladies will identify with the lyrics and fellas will definitely respect the swagger these songs toy at.
In true Bad Boy form, DK quells listeners' desire for ballads with steamy interludes. These flaming snippets give fans enough to
want more but don't weigh down the flow of the album.
The album's only full-length ballad comes in the form of Poetry, a frustrating tale of love on the fritz. The ladies plead with their lover to stop playing a game of poetry-"hiding behind the words you speak/Changing the words of the story…What are you hiding?"
Altogether, Dollhouse is a platinum-worthy project and demonstrates the lyrical and personal growth each group member has undergone since their self-titled debut in late 2006.
Shaking off a successful bout against the sophomore curse, it's clear that the ladies of Danity Kane are positioning themselves for at least a few more year's of pop fame.
Marshall A. Latimore•
On Welcome to the Dollhouse, the group members-Dawn, Aubrey, Aundrea, D. Woods and Shannon-break out of the Bad Boy R&B mold and set off to claim their place in pop music history.
And with stronger vocals and a bevy of hit-making producers and writers on board, this album may just be the first of the Bad Boy arsenal to truly cross over.
Leading their quest to take over the charts, the quintet's first single, Damaged, was released digitally on Jan. 29. Since the album's release, Damaged debuted at 50 on Billboard's Pop 100 Airplay chart for the week of March 29.
The single's music video, which premiered March 11 on MTV's Total Request Live and mtv.com, peaked at number one on the iTunes Top Music Videos chart and has been watched more than 400,000 times on Google's YouTube.com.
DK's recipe for Dollhouse was simple-more up-tempo club bangers and less ballads. And executing this mission are tracks like the Danjahandz-produced Bad Girl, Pretty Boy and
Striptease, as well as 2 of You and Lights Out, all produced by in-house Bad Boy producers including Mario Winans, Bryan-Michael Cox, Wyldcard and Diddy himself.
The girls knock these fast-paced songs out of the park, as each of them have strong single-potential and will predictably all get major play on club dance floors across the country-making the album a perfect offering for summer consumption.
The Missy Elliot-featured Bad Girl will potentially become the "getting-ready-to-go-out" anthem ladies will rock all summer.
Over a futuristic beat, Aubrey coos, "Look in my eyes covered in Maybelline/Looking like something fresh out a magazine/I can be part of your deepest fantasies/You're the detective, come solve my mystery."
The song's chorus only adds to this vanity, as the ladies repeat in unison, "Maybe I'm just a bad girl." Surely, Diddy's somewhere smiling and nodding in agreement.
Lights Out and Striptease have a particular charm that fans will definitely love-even though their subject matter teeters along the risqué factor.
Ladies will identify with the lyrics and fellas will definitely respect the swagger these songs toy at.
In true Bad Boy form, DK quells listeners' desire for ballads with steamy interludes. These flaming snippets give fans enough to
want more but don't weigh down the flow of the album.
The album's only full-length ballad comes in the form of Poetry, a frustrating tale of love on the fritz. The ladies plead with their lover to stop playing a game of poetry-"hiding behind the words you speak/Changing the words of the story…What are you hiding?"
Altogether, Dollhouse is a platinum-worthy project and demonstrates the lyrical and personal growth each group member has undergone since their self-titled debut in late 2006.
Shaking off a successful bout against the sophomore curse, it's clear that the ladies of Danity Kane are positioning themselves for at least a few more year's of pop fame.
Marshall A. Latimore•
Be the first to comment on this story