Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 30/10/06
Label: Polydor

In the transient merry-go-round of pop, the greatest hits album is a dark and ominous thing. Like witnessing The Reaper's shadow fall black across the land while, in an eerie silence, birds stop singing and small furry creatures burrow safely underground, it foretells unhappy portents of inner turmoil, impending solo careers and - following a last gasp fill-your-boots goodbye tour around the nation's arenas - an untimely and gratuitous split.

Yes, it's an ill wind that blows, and one that's littered with tombstones of pin-up's past. Give or take the odd exception - George Michael, Robbie…that's it - once they leave the cocoon of boy band / girl band safety, pop star's tend to be a long time dead. All that's left is the slow walk of shame towards "I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here". And, as All Saints, Take That, E17 and 5ive have all recently proved, there's nowt much you can do about it but wait around ten years and hope that a wave of nostalgia sweeps you back up again.

Whether Girls Aloud are on the verge of splitting is, as yet, unclear; although it does seem faintly ridiculous that they've released enough singles to fill an entire CD. It hardly seems four minutes since five pairs of white stilettos stomped on the dreams of One True Voice (remember them and their nattily titled "Shakespeare's (Way With) Words"?) and trounced off with the title of "Pop Stars: The Rivals". With "Sound Of The Underground" hitting Christmas Number One, the mini-me Spice Girls celebrated in a frenzy of alcopop-fuelled glamour, leaving a quaking trail of nancy-arsed boy bands in their wake.

Sidestepping an unsavoury incident with a black cloakroom assistant, they've been on the onwards and upwards ever since - claiming both the pop charts and the covers of Heat / Closer, to the point where they've become minor UK royalty - Cheryl cementing her union with dislikeable ex-Arsenal mercenary Ashley Cole and Nadine stepping out with a "Desperate Housewives" hunk. But behind the 3AM nonsense, the music has been remarkably good - last year's "Biology" single was one of 2005's best, while a good proportion of their Xenomania penned material is self-knowing, funny and totally spot on in depicting the concerns of 50% of the UK's 14-25 female demographic.

Of course, there's also been an awful lot of filler - mostly charity-based cover versions - and the karaoke renditions of The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You", Pointer Sisters' "Jump", Dee C Lee's "See The Day" and Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" really drag this collection down. Ballads are not their forte either, but the sheer thrill of "Love Machine", "No Good Advice", "The Show" or new single "Something Kinda Ooooh" serve to highlight that Girls Aloud have been the best British pop band of the new millennium.

If they do bow out now, and it's probably time they did, we'll remember them fondly.

    by Adam Webb