Like the Pussycat Dolls before her, Nicole Scherzinger feels like she's had a much more prolific musical career than she actually has, as just like PCD, the Schamazing Scherzinger is only getting to album number two. Just like her first album "Killer Love", which had stop-start singles only to be scrapped completely and worked over from the beginning, "Big Fat Lie" had its first single - the fun but forgettable "Boomerang" - released back in March 2013, and is nowhere to be found here, with all previous sessions dumped in favour of a new approach.

In came Tricky Stewart and The-Dream (Britney's "Me Against The Music", Rihanna's "Umbrella", Mariah's "Touch My Body") to exec-produce the entire album, mixing it up from Killer Love's hodge-podge of whose-hot-right-now? creative team in order to bring a more singular sound. Does it pay off? Let's have a listen:

1. YOUR LOVE
Ballad or Banger? Banger.

Single number one was a smart decision, in that it's the most chart-friendly track on here, but unwise mostly because it sounds like nothing else on the album. Ignoring some poor lyric decisions (‘I want you to knock me out like Mike Tyson…'), this is still an absolute belter of a high tempo love song, helped in no small part to that post-chorus "Doooo, do do do DOOOO" earworm. The closest you'll get to a Pussycat Dolls song you'll hear on here.

2. ELECTRIC BLUE featuring T.I.
Ballad or Banger? Banger.

Sounding like a cut from one of Janet Jackson's later albums, working from a heavy synth riff and Nicole's sexy, sleep delivery, this isn't something that is going to be filling dance-floors as it's just that TEENY bit too slow, but it is something to finger-snap all the way through, and definitely one of the best tunes of the album.

3. ON THE ROCKS
Ballad or Banger? Angry Ballad.

The sad piano and sparse drums at the beginning, along with Nicole's morose lyrics, defy the chorus when the sound picks itself up, dusts itself off, and decides to have a good time anyways. A post-break up song that sounds like the love child of Rihanna and Avril Lavigne, it's all a bit ten years ago, and not in a good way.

4. HEARTBREAKER
Ballad or Banger? Bedroom Banger.

Electric guitars and swirling synths provide Nicole the background to giving her heart away to someone she knows is no good, but she still wants that one night of passion. More Janet comparisons abound, like if "The Velvet Rope" album was made today, this would totally be on there. Probably the best song on the album, but so un-radio-friendly, we can't imagine it ever being a single.

5. GOD OF WAR
Ballad or Banger? Angry Ballad.

Kind of like On The Rocks, this is another break-up anthem, with some VERY grown up lyrics - "I'm so glad you're gone, you're so f**king annoying!", for example - but unlike On The Rocks, it sounds very 2014. There's also that "La Laaaaa La" bridge throughout, which makes for another tricksy little earworm for Nicole to play with. Possible future single potential? Quite high.

6. GIRL WITH A DIAMOND HEART
Ballad or Banger? Banger-y Ballad.

Yet. Another. Break. Up. Anthem. We get it Nicole, you had a significant other, and it didn't work out, but even Taylor Swift sings about other things now and again. And yet another post-chorus "La La La La", we're beginning to think you've run out of things to say. Well produced, yes, but mostly entirely forgettable.

7. JUST A GIRL featuring The-Dream
Ballad or Banger? Bedroom Banger.

We're back to some happier territory, with The-Dream taking the first half of the song, singing the gender swap lyrics of "If I was your girl, I'd be here for you, so let's do it…", and then Nicole takes over the second half, to pretty much repeat everything he's just said. It totally works though, the sexual implications shooting off the chart, and it sounds like everyone is having a good time.

8. FIRST TIME
Ballad or Banger? Banger.

Sort of covering the same ground as Madonna's "Like A Virgin", Nicole starts singing about the stuff that she wants her man to buy her, before switching over to "I want it to feel like it did for the very first time", and we don't think she's talking about shopping anymore. She does a good job of keeping up with the harder edged hip-hop beat, but you can't help but feel that someone like Nicki Minaj would've knocked this right out of the park.

9. BANG
Ballad or Banger? Bedroom Banger.

We're still in bed with Nicole, as she completely ditches the pretence and subtext, and she just wants to Bang. The horn section (ha ha) perfectly soundtracks the escalating need in Scherzy's vocals, and this is about as perfect a soundtrack to baby-making as you're ever going to get - "Underneath the covers, no colours, just lovers"…. Nice. Had she ditched the break-up stuff and had an album full of Bang, Nicole could've had a modern equivalent to R. Kelly's historic "12 Play" album. Oh what could have been…

10. BIG FAT LIE
Ballad or Banger? Sad Banger.

"I ain't ever had my heart broken…" So we guess we're back in break-up land. The only track on the album that Nicole has a co-writing credit on, which probably explains how she landed on that awful album title, it's obviously a very personal track, but it sounds like every other break-up anthem on here. Plus, some of the lyrics - "Love me passed my feet, cos I run a little deeper" - are awful.

11. RUN
Ballad or Banger? Ballad.

Yes, another break up ballad, but finally - FINALLY - a good one. With the stripped back production, raw and honest lyrics and Nicole's vocals at their most powerful, this is something you can see future X Factor contestants completely mucking up during their auditions. One of the album highlights, and a great way to close out the album.

OVERALL: a few years ago, production duo Tricky Stewart and The Dream exec-produced an album for an American girl group called Electrik Red. It sounded completely unlike anything else out there at the time, was filled with brilliant songs, but was so uncommercially minded that we've heard nothing from them sense. Cut forward to today, and "Big Fat Lie" sounds like the follow up to that Electrik Red album, albeit with one too many break-up songs. This shows Nicole at her most experimental, while still very much within the R'n'B wheelhouse, but as far as singles or sales go, she's kind of shot herself in the foot. Well worth a listen, because you won't be hearing it anywhere on the radio.