The news that Girls Aloud are to become the face of high street clothing chain New Look makes perfect sense. Both parties are inexpensive, brash and fashionable, taking their lead from hipper sources and moving on before familiar trends become stale.
Witness the glorious opening brace of hits (three Number Twos and a chart-topper) on this, their second album: “The Show”, “Love Machine”, “I’ll Stand By You” and “Jump”. Variously ’80s electro-indebted, line-dance giddy, surprisingly soulful and plain fun, they’re indicative of why this album even exists when Hear’Say are no more, Sinead and Sneddon are but hazy memories and Alex Parks’ album proper is yet to be released. Girls Aloud (or rather the powers that be behind them, Louis Walsh or whoever) have no fear of pop, no burning desire to write their own songs and play their own instruments. Pliable and pouting, they may lack the feisty, thrusting personalities of the amassed Spice Girls but they are by far the next best thing.
As is gospel with even the greatest pops albums, however, it’s a patchy affair. “Wake Me Up”, “Big Brother” and “Thank me Daddy” are more crunchy electro, “Deadlines & Diets” is smoky “Dusty In Memphis” fare, “Hear Me Out” a dull “2 Become 1” clone and “Here We Go” a relatively filthy ’60s romp (“Put your tongue in my ear/It's queer but kinda fun...I don't do sex/But I do do second base”). Two ‘UK bonus tracks’ a.k.a. complete filler, “I Say A Prayer For You” and “100 Different Ways” are plodding, pointless and best ignored.
Two new tracks stand out. “Graffiti My Soul”, with its lyrical riff of “Spike heels and skintight jeans/I’ve got a fistful of love that’s coming your way”, is like some great lost Sugababes single, frighteningly sharp and sassy; and “Real Life”, which unexpectedly evokes Martina Topley-Bird’s Tricky tracks.
Within every lyric there emerges at least one killer couplet or, in the case of “Love Machine”, chorus – “Is it just the Margaritas or are you/Looking at me?”, “It’s 3am and you still look gorgeous…I hate to say but I’m feeling nauseous”, “Shoulda known, shoulda cared/Shoulda hung around the kitchen in my underwear”.
Unlike with Will or Lemar, there’s little apparent effort here to carve out a long term for the ladies. But then again, like a pair of au courant New Look boots, this album isn’t an investment piece so much a cheap thrill to be savoured and worn out by next Christmas. If they have any sense, the neighbours will shout “Bravo!”
