Pussycat Dolls Fight, Danity Kane Split: Bad Week for Girl Groups

The Pussycat Dolls seemed destined for trouble since most recognizable Doll Nicole Scherzinger's "Whatever U Like" flopped as a single, her long-delayed solo album was tabled and many of its songs popped up on the Dolls' most recent disc, Doll Domination. Since hitting the road with Britney Spears as the opening act on her Circus tour, the Doll drama has reached new heights. Responding to the fact that the group has begun being billed as the Pussycat Dolls Featuring Nicole Scherzinger, Doll Melody Thornton spoke out during the group's show in Arizona last week, telling her hometown crowd, "Thank you for supporting me even though I'm not featured! You know what I'm saying?"

Perez Hilton, who first reported on the Arizona incident, has also highlighted a tense radio interview where the ladies admitted to reading online gossip about themselves. "It's no big deal," Scherzinger said about her "featured" status on the Dolls' rendition of Slumdog Millionaire's "Jai Ho." "That doesn't take away from anybody else in the group. That's my role. I wrote 'Hush Hush' as well."

Also last week, Diddy officially dissolved his Making the Band girl group Danity Kane — who went Number One twice, both with their self-titled 2006 debut and follow-up Welcome to the Dollhouse, and had one of last year's hottest singles in "Damaged." After dismissing two of the group's singers (Aubrey O'Day and D. Woods) at the end of the reality show's last season, Diddy ended the show's run this time by letting Aundrea Fimbres and Shannon Bex out of their contracts. Dawn Richard will stay with Bad Boy, and could continue on with a solo career or another group — though it won't be called Danity Kane unless the other four return for a reunion. If only they hadn't put the word "Doll" in their most recent album title ...

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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