“Buttons,” the Pussycat Dolls’ 2006 banger, has officially crossed a major milestone. Today, the track officially surpassed one billion views on YouTube, joining a select group of tracks. Featuring lead vocals from Nicole Scherzinger with support from Melody Thornton, Carmit Bachar, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta, and Kimberly Wyatt, “Buttons” was a signature song in the Pussycat Dolls songbook even before its resurgence in the 2020s.
Included on their 2005 debut PCD, “Buttons” was released as the album’s fourth single in 2006. The song was a hit, especially when Snoop Dogg hopped on a new single version of the song. With him, the track eventually made it to number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Buttons” also topped charts in Australia, Austria, Hungary, and New Zealand, and charted in the top ten in a dozen other countries around the world. ASCAP named the songs one of the most performed of the year in 2006. “Buttons” is now certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Although the song was a big hit with staying power, its genesis happened pretty quickly. “I wrote it in a very short time. My man Polow Da Don did the beat,” songwriter Sean Garrett recalled in an interview with Complex years later. “I really dug the beat. A lot of times, my songs come from a conversation I had with someone. It could just be a phrase used. Everyone knows Nicole is very sexy so the concept of loosening up her buttons—every guy would want that and women wouldn’t have a problem with guys loosening up their buttons.”
The track was accompanied by a well-known music video featuring the Pussycat Dolls performing at a dance bar and with chairs in a nod to their origins in burlesque. In 2022, the track experienced a major resurgence when a new remix, the “Showmusik Remix,” went viral on TikTok. The trend spawned an accompanying dance challenge, which Scherzinger herself participated in on social media.
Listen to the recent BLOND:ISH remix of The Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha” now.
