Nicole Scherzinger’s second solo album ‘Big Fat Lie’ is almost upon us, and to mark the occasion the star hit the lavish Hotel Café Royal in London to debut some of the tracks in an acoustic set on Tuesday night.
As well as hits from her back catalogue we already know and love, such as ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’ and ‘Your Love’, Nicole premiered several new tracks from the upcoming release, such as ‘Electric Blue’ and the title track, ‘Big Fat Lie’.
The album is out next week, but if you can’t wait till then to get a taste of what will no doubt be one of the most ‘schamazing’ collections of 2014, then you’re in luck because we can fill you in with five things you can expect from ‘Big Fat Lie’.
Nicole Scherzinger
1. SEX
It’s pretty much unanimously agreed that Nicole is one of the sexiest women in the world, a side of her character she’s definitely exploring on the new album, as new track ‘Electric Blue’ showed with its sultry lyrics. She even jokingly introduced the song saying: “We’re not bringing sexy back… because it never left.”
As if that wasn’t racy enough, she kicked off her set with a special performance of ‘Your Love’, performed “as it was originally written”, that saw her singing: “Boy, your sex makes me feel like roo, roo doo doo doo doo doo.”
“Roo doo doo doo doo” - high praise indeed, eh?
2. BALLADS
She may be best known for her dance floor jams like ‘Right There’ and ‘Boomerang’ - while her most memorable hits with the Pussycat Dolls were bangers like ‘Don’t Cha’, ‘Hush Hush; Hush Hush’ and ‘When I Grow Up’ - but Nicole proved she can tug at the heartstrings with her more downbeat efforts too, which the acoustic nature of her performance lent itself to perfectly.
Nicole belts out one of her new songs
3. EMOTION
Nicole has said in the past that ‘Big Fat Lie’ is one of her most personal albums to date, which is clear from the selection of tracks she performed on Tuesday night, in particular the album’s title track, ‘Big Fat Lie’.
The song title may make it seem light-hearted and fun, but she’s actually tackling some pretty serious issues on the track. Referring to her past struggles with bulimia, which she opened up about in detail for the first time earlier this year, Nicole introduced ‘Big Fat Lie’ as a “transitional” song, saying: “Sometimes the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves. Sometimes you need to reveal, to heal.”
4. FUN
When she wasn’t singing straight from the heart, though, Nicole displayed some of the infectious energy that made her such a hit with ‘X Factor’ viewers over the past few years (and which has been noticeably lacking from the judging panel this year).
Of course, she couldn’t resist the chance to drop her catchphrase “schamazing” into the conversation (“y’all were waiting for me to say it”), and even joked that she was hoping to perform ‘Don’t Hold Your Breasts’ rather than the, slightly less amusing, ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’, accompanied by a boob-grazing dance move.
With so many heavy tracks, it’s good to see Nicole is still managing to have as much fun as possible with the rest of the album.
5. VOICE
And what a voice it is!
Between the ‘X Factor’ judging and the raunchy dance moves, the 10/10 hair and the fact she can’t seem to eat a yoghurt without having a minor orgasm, it seems that Nicole is constantly - and completely unfairly - overlooked as a vocalist.
It’s no coincidence Nicole was recently cast as the female lead in the West End reboot of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Cats’, she can hit the high notes like the best of them, which was never more apparent than when she performed her tear-jerking single ‘Run’, accompanied just by a piano, and had the entire audience - which included the unusual mix of Samuel L Jackson and ‘X Factor’ runner-up Jahmene Douglas - on their feet by the end of the song.
‘Big Fat Lie’ is available from 20 October.