Tangled Up - Girls Aloud

Well you know me. Girls Aloud happen to be brilliant. And as the bloke from The Guardian said the other day, "people who don't like Girls Aloud are like people who say they hate The Beatles; they're either posturing or they're an idiot. Either way, you should pay them no mind."

Precisely.

Still as it's Girls Aloud, I'm going to crack out the "once in a blue moon" track by track review of the new album Tangled Up.

1. Call the Shots
It symptomatic of how great the Girls Aloud "non-cover version" singles are that this is seen by some as a disappointment. It's not really a ballad as such, but is still the best ballad they've ever done which, admittedly isn't saying much. But then liking Girls Aloud for their balladry is like liking the Beatles because of Ringo Starr. In the final analysis it's just too "normal" to be a great Girls Aloud tune.

2. Close To Love
This is another one that is slightly too normal to be classic Girls Aloud. The best Girls Aloud tracks sound like they really couldn't be by anyone else. This is not one of those.

3. Sexy! No No No
I seemed to be in the minority with this one, but I didn't really like this. As a single it was adventurous, but was missing that vital thing. A great chorus. It's not bad (and is better than 95% of the last Sugababes album) but "not bad" doesn't really cut the mustard in terms of the Girls Aloud back catalogue.

4. Girl Overboard
Ok so this doesn't have the manic genius of, say, Biology, but it's a bloody brilliant tune, even if it does scream out "mid 1990's dance tune". One listen is all it takes for the "Girl overboard, I thought I had it but I tumbled" chorus to lodge in your brain. A stomping big gay anthem if ever I've heard one.

5. Can't Speak French
There's a story in this one. Perhaps Xenomania were stood in Subway City on that fateful day I tried to chat up a French girl whilst some Michael Jackson classic was pumping over the PA system. "I Can't Speak French, so I'll let the funky music do the talking" seems pretty appropriate for that night of my life. History will show I failed on that particular occasion, but who knows perhaps she's sat in a Paris Café listening to this song on her I-Pod thinking back to that same night. Anyway, I don't think you came here to listen to my life story so back onto the actual song. It's one of those schizophrenic ones which doesn't really seem to know what it's wanting to be. It's good and the kind of thing that only Girls Aloud do, and whilst it might not convince in the way that some of their tracks of this type do, it's still very good.

6. Black Jacks
Oh, we're really getting somewhere now. This is a retro sounding track (like something Candie Payne would do) right from the opening drum beats. "Come and get stuck in" might be one of their finest moments ever. In all seriousness, if someone like the Kaiser Chiefs or Franz Ferdinand did this people would be hailing it as an all-time classic. But I'm not so shallow that a "cool" band has to do it for me to say this. This is wonderful,

7. Control Of The Knife
This is one of those songs that on first listen seems a little bit of fluff, but it's another one of those that just lodges itself in your brain. It's a little bit reggae (in the way that some of Gwen Stefani's stuff could be called reggae) and when they sing "you got me hook, line and sinker" that pretty much sums up the appeal of this song. Insistent beats matched to a very catchy tune. A definite winner.

8. Fling
"Its just a bit of ding-a-ling baby, don't want relationships, so swing baby, swing baby." I think that might get Dave a bit hot under the collar. Whilst this once again proves that Nadine shouldn't attempt to rap there is no denying it's power. My only downside about this one is that parts of the guitar backing sound depressingly close to the worst song ever (which as you should all know is that god awful I Like The Way You Move).

9. What You Crying For
Well I bet you never thought that GA would go drum'n'bass? Not particularly my cup of tea, but not bad.

10. I'm Falling
We're continuing the techno style beats here, but to much better effect than on the previous track. My only real criticism is the relatively weak chorus.

11. Damn
It's like someone has unearthed a previously unreleased outtake from the movie Grease. I can see the Arctic Monkeys doing this one really well you know. It's got that insistent, nagging groovy guitar beat that is their trademark.

12. Crocodile Tears
So we finish off with the closest thing to a ballad on the album. For some reason I can see them hanging around in a Western town in the video to this one. If they did a video for this one. It's very good.

So overall? Well it's clear to see that in it's first flush of youth it's no Chemistry, but then that was one of the classic pop albums of the 21st Century so far. No really.

To put things into perspective, it's easily a "four star" album and has a smattering of "five star" tracks. It's also convincingly better than the recent effort by the Sugababes (their closest "contemporaries" I suppose). For the most part it's also the kind of thing that only Girls Aloud could give us (let's face it, Xenomania save their best stuff for the Girls).

No covers, no real soppy ballads...what more could you ask for from a Girls Aloud album?

Stupid Hair

The one bad thing about the new Girls Aloud single/video is Sarah Harding's hair is as daft as ever.

Single Releases 03/08/07

Ok so first an apology. Yes, I did totally forget to review KT Tunstall's comeback single Hold On.
So better late than never...

It's good. I can't quite see why she keeps insisting it's got an "R'n'B" vibe to it, but maybe that's just me. My only criticism of it would be that it could do with a catchier chorus. It's not a bad chorus by any means but it drags the song down slightly. As for the "you've got to be drastic to be fantastic" thing, I'll hold judgement on that until the album.

Onto this week's stuff.

Girls Aloud slam back on the scene with Sexy! No No No. I'd prefer a question mark instead of an exclamation mark. But anyhoo, it's a decent effort. Not as catchy as their best stuff but it does have that tinge of maniacal genius that all their best stuff has. The opening is brilliant; the rest of the song doesn't quite match it. The "duh-duh-dirty mind" bit though is perfection.

Rhianna may be boring as a pop star, but she comes up with some cracking pop singles. Ok, so she's "presented" with them, but Shut Up & Drive is very good, although it's New Order recreation isn't as good as the Soft Cell driven SOS. But as I've said before; in pop terms what else is these days?

Bring out the Roast Chicken because James Blunt is back. 1973 is pretty awful though. And I'm speaking as someone who hasn't got sick of his album. He's come back with the kind of song the record company wanted him to come back with. It just doesn't have that soaring quality that his best singles have had. Ok, that High had.

Candie Payne's record company have finally decided that my tipping her for success in 2007 needn't mean the end of her career by getting Mark Ronson in to remix One More Chance. A good job he's done too. Now all I need is people to actually start buying her records.

Isn't this a "big name" single's week?

The Editors return with that one song they always do. Fair's fair though, they do do the one song very well. I'm growing less and less enamoured with his voice though every time I hear it. Watching them live may be a painful experience...only joking Gee man.

Is there a worse single this year knocking about than Plain White T's Hey There Delilah? There may be, but this is definitely on the short list. I particularly love how this song's success somehow is supposed to signify a good thing. It's not. They're rubbish, the song is rubbish and, in effect, this is naught but a novelty record.

Speaking of awful novelty records, we come to Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston. It's a close run thing over whether this is worse than even Plain White T.

Of course both of those will sell thousands more copies than Lucky Soul's One Kiss Don't Make a Summer but then life isn't fair. Why it's been released now, instead of the height of the summer is beyond me, but then I don't run a record company do I?

Paramore's Hallelujah is a nice little track. Nothing earth shattering, but good all the same.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip are seemingly awesome. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is another winner.

As mentioned before, Bonde do Rolê don't quite have the killer single that would see them doing a "CSS" but Solta o Frango is a typically good track from them all the same.

Sexy! No No No

So the new Girls Aloud single is "out there", and trust me to be away when it's all kicking off.

Anyway, it's good.

But not as good as the introduction suggests it's going to be. Still, it's early days and no doubt I'll start loving it soon.

Whatever, it's a brave choice as a first single and proof that they're still going to absoultely amazing.

And it's a nice excuse to post a picture of my Daisy...

Girls Aloud LIVE

I could go on and on about the long search for a restaurant that had a spare table and I could go on and on about the rather mardy girl on the table next to us who wanted a free meal for 8 people because they'd brought out one wrong main course but there is so much music to get through that I won't. That is because lured by the charms of Rogue Traders, we got there in time to see ALL the support acts.

NATALIA - You have to give this girl credit for being so relentlessly cheerful as she went from one disaster of a pop song to another. And three dancers? That's blown her entire profit for the tour methinks.

MISHA WILLIAMS - Well she obviously caught the "arms" portion of her stage school course; the woman never stopped pointing, waving, swaying etc. her arms. Like a reject from High School Musical she peddled her sub-Lavigne pop rock to little effect.

ROGUE TRADERS - I still maintain that Voodoo Child is one of the worst fucking hit singles so far this century but they weren't too bad at all. Ok, so the "weren't too bad" bit probably is completely down to the fact that Natalie Bassingthwaighte is a bit fit, but after the first two disasters, Rogue Traders seemed like manna from heaven.

So onto the main event. It was clear that the crowd was significantly older (there wasn't a kid under 12 on our row) than last year; hell we weren't even anywhere near the oldest in our section at all. I don't suppose I'll ever really know if I did actually recognise the woman next to us from a tv programme or not though.

Anyways, thankfully the nonsense that preceded last years tour was missing and as the band came on we looked to the skies to see the Girls entering from the ceiling, dressed in some kind of police/army hybrid "GA" uniform (which two ladies in front of us had mimicked). Section 1 of the show was most certainly upbeat. Something Kinda Ooooh kicked things off, although it didn't really have the dirty drive of the recorded version. It was followed by an excellent Wake Me Up, a pretty pitiful Walk This Way and an enjoyable Jump.

A change of costume later and it was straight into No Good Advice, still one of their finest moments, followed by Long Hot Summer. Then they strapped themselves into some kind of swing thing to sing Whole Lotta History before hitting into the Dirty Dancing medley (which Cheryl laughably introduced as their chance to sing some of their favourite moments) which included Do You Love Me, She's Like The Wind and Time Of My Life. Painful isn't quite the word, but it's not far off.

Another costume change followed, into what I would probably describe as "gangster" style outfits (as in 1930's gangsters that is, not 50 Cent or something like that). They kicked off this portion of the show with Sound Of The Underground, following it up with a reggae version of Life Got Cold (which, according to Nicola at least, the girls got together with the band to rework...yeah right) before a great version of Graffiti My Soul. The section ended up with Real Life, which is apparently a favourite of the girls, but not exactly a favourite of mine.

Thanks to the bloke in front of me by the way...

There was more prancing from the male dancers as the Girls did another costume change. They then killed the momentum with a ludicrously slow version of I Think We're Alone Now before bringing things back to life, for me anyway, with Money (although this did seem like the one part of the evening where they were miming). I'll Stand By You remains a better proposition, GA style, live than on the record. It was also memorable for Nadine's "if you've got your girlfriend with you, give her a hug. Or your boyfriend. Boy on boy, girl on girl, I don't mind as long as you're happy." They finished up with Love Machine, which had everyone rocking.

There was time for one more costume change for the encore, which saw the girls writhing around in beds for The Show before tossing aside those silk dressing gowns for a riotous version of Biology to finally end the show.

That's the run-down, but was it any good? Well as ever there were some minor complaints. For what was billed as a "Greatest Hits" tour, they didn't half do some faffing about with some of the tunes. Call me old-fashioned, but surely a Greatest Hits tour should be about hearing the hits as they should be? Plus why, and I'm talking to you Nadine, would you say "we're doing ALL the hits tonight" and then not do See The Day?

Still, despite the occasional lull in proceedings, it was an entertaining night indeed. It's also refreshing to see that they look like they're having fun, the hilariously detached Nicola aside. There could quite literally be World War III going on around her and I doubt she'd notice. That said, she is definitely now my second favourite of the girls.

It's doubtful that anyone left the arena unhappy, indeed there was definitely a buzz about what people had just seen, but I can't help but have a tinge of regret that it wasn't even better than it was. A little tweaking here and there could have resulted in a much tighter show.

In other salient points;

* I still get annoyed by Sarah shouting random things in the middle of songs. And she still has stupid hair.

* My digital camera is rubbish. A fact you will be well aware of having got this far in the review.

* Nadine's put some weight on. And I don't mean that in a negative way; I mean she's accenuated her curves. A move of which I approve.

* Kimberley seemed to deliver the most duff notes.

* Getting the crowd to do a mexican wave is no longer funny. If it ever was funny.

* That bloke who "slagged" the concert off in The Times (?) had a certain point in that I too found it mildly depressing that everyone went mad for the cover versions in comparison to the genuine pop classics like Biology.

* They must have done the programme (£10!!!) months ago as not only does Sarah send out her love to "Joe" but it also clearly mentions that they will be doing a medley of "girl group" classics. Which of course they didn't.

As a final aside, my new "ranking" for the girls is as follows;

1) Nadine
2) Nicola
3) Cheryl
4) Kimberley
5) Sarah.

There you go; that will have managed to annoy 3/4 of my readership at least. ;-D