We're drivin' slow through the snow on Fifth Avenue
Who'd have guessed the easy highlight of the second PCD album would be a ballad? A mid-tempo ballad, to be sure, but hardly the up-tempo attitude-filled dance-a-thon we've come to expect from the group. "Stickwitu" certainly left me with no desire to hear a ballad from them again, but then, suddenly, there was "I Hate This Part," a song with a genuinely affecting vocal delivery by Nicole and a fantastic melody, mainly backed up by a piano part and that four-four drum machine beat so popular over these last two years and yet used here in a way that doesn't instantly make you think of all the other songs that have used it. That fact may be in large part because the drum machine has been pushed further back in the musical mix; instead of being foregrounded, it's just one layer of a song also filled with strings, electronic swings, that aforementioned piano, and that vocal melody, which is never lost as Nicole narrates the end of a relationship. Catchy, winning, and emotional (as well as still danceable, if it comes to that), a perfect winter song--of course this would fail to take off as their other singles have.**Subject to change to "take off as quickly as their other singles have" should it continue to climb the U.S. charts.
Find it on: Doll Domination
