Girls Aloud: A career in 25 gifs

Even dreams that glitter have to come to an end: Girls Aloud are no more.

Dear Alouders, we just want to say from the bottom of our hearts Thank you!! This tour has been an amazing experience and the perfect chance to say thank you for being on this journey with us through a decade. It has far exceeded any of our dreams and we hope we are forever your inspiration and reminder that dreams really do glitter!! Your love and support will stay with us forever but we have now come to the end of our incredible time together . Love you lots.

The thing is: I agree. Pop shouldn't outstay it's welcome, and Girls Aloud have had an extremely successful, and particularly lengthy, run at the top.

As the band approach their 30s, it would have been unseemly for them to keep singing about margarita-fuelled one night stands. On their recent tour, lines like "should have hung around the kitchen in my underwear" felt especially awkward. And, let's face it, if they'd started making another album, Cheryl would have insisted on Will.i.am producing half of it. And no-one in their right minds would have wanted that.

So, thank you, Girls Aloud. You were awesome. And we're looking forward to Nicola's next solo album like you wouldn't believe.

And here, as an animated gif memorial, are the band's best bits.



Cheryl "Tweedy" is first to become a Girl Aloud.




Disco Dancing with the lights down low.




The Show: A rousing anthem of female empowerment.




Rise and shine, Nicola.




AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!




"The hair toss" - Girls Aloud's signature dance move.




And once you've hit on a good idea...




... Exploit it for all you're worth.




Biology: The moment the world went: "They're not too bad. For a girl band".




Really? Oh my god.




A failure to grasp the rudiments of a foreign language was parlayed into a hit single.
Also, corsets.




Alert: High heels can be hazardous to your health.




I'm sad to hear that you're still shook up.




Over the course of decade, Kimberley would refine the pout into an artform.




Mmmmm, sandwiches.




The very first tear Cheryl shed on X Factor started the countdown to the band's demise.




From top to bottom, I'm all woman, sunshine.




The Walk.




The Stomp.




The Promise.




Winning a Brit.




Chasing a wasp.




Riding a bottle of champagne.




"It's not pervy, it's a visual metaphor or whatever".




Goodbye Sarah.
Goodbye Nadine.
Goodbye Kimberley.
Goodbye Nicola.
Goodbye Cheryl.
Goodbye Girls Aloud. *sniff*

Some images via Girls Aloud Gifs and Girls Aloud USA. Other's are "author's own".

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Review: Girls Aloud Ten Tour at the O2

I'm now a veteran of six (!) Girls Aloud tours, with the glowstick burns to prove it. As anyone knows, the main task upon leaving a Girls Aloud concert is to decide which girl is the best girl in Girls Aloud. Here's how it worked out last night.

1) THE SINGING
Oh dear. The vocals were decidedly wobbly on Sunday night. There were missed cues, sharp harmonies, and ad-libs that sounded like a plane full of mating cats going into a nosedive (I'm looking at you, Sarah). In the band's defence, their voices were a bit fragile after performing four shows in three days - as Nadine explained on Twitter, there'd been an extra run-through for the cameras on Saturday afternoon, as the show was filmed for a DVD.

Poor Nicola could be seen clutching her throat in between her lines - but when she let rip, she was incredible. A vampish "always thought you were so cool" in Wake Me Up was an early highlight, but when she practically burst into tears during Beautiful Cause You Love Me, it sent shivers up my spine.

Verdict: Nicola wins.


2) THE COSTUMES
Top marks to the designers on this tour. Gone were the spangly bikinis and luminous unitards of previous outings, replaced by elegant-yet-sexy basques and Oscar-worthy ballgowns. The bulk of the credit goes to Vicky Barkess - a wardrobe mistress on Strictly - who designed the costumes for the feather-tastic carnival section (the one where Cheryl had angel wings) and the Supremes-inspired 60s outfits. And who wore it best?

Verdict: Nicola wins.



3) ON-STAGE BANTER
Girls Aloud tours are not known for their Wildean repartee and quotable bon mots. There was a lot of thanking the fans, and saying how "unbelievable" it was to have spent 10 years together. Sarah made a good start, screaming "Big Mouth Is Bloody Back", but then lost her nerve.

So it was up to Nadine and her garbled Derry accent to give us the night's best lines, including the she-actually-can't-speak-French classic: "Wurr gonta take it back for youse to circa la 2004".

Later, as she introduced Call The Shots, Nadine inadvertently revealed her opinion of the band's back catalogue, declaring: "Now, this one's a really good one."

Verdict: Nadine wins.



4) CHOREOGRAPHY
Weirdly, the show made no use of Cheryl's athletic body-popping or Kimberley's Strictly dance chops, but there were a few nice touches - especially during the b-stage section. Constricted to a smaller space, the girls performed a complicated interweaving routine for Untouchable focused around some pleasingly intricate hand choreography. The line "we're beautiful robots dancing alone" led to a brief outburst of robot dancing. Nice.

Verdict: Group win.



5) INTERACTION
For all of the tabloid stories of inter-band rivalries, Girls Aloud have always seemed a closely-knit unit. Nowhere is this relationship more evident than with Cheryl and Kimberley. Ms Cole was constantly trying to distract her bandmate, giving her a hefty wallop on the bum during one of her solo lines, and pulling stupid faces while she talked to the crowd.

Then, during the encore, the band sang I'll Stand By You. When they got to the line "I’m a lot like you", Cheryl And Kimberley turned and gave each other a big hug. Ahhhhh.

Verdict: Cheryl and Kimberley win.


6) MUSICALITY
The Ten Tour is a jaunt through Girls Aloud's greatest hits and, by that token, it probably has the best set-list of their career, taking a vaguely chronological run through their biggest singles. Interestingly, the early hits all seemed to be in a much lower register than the likes of Call The Shots and The Promise, which certainly didn't help with those aforementioned vocal problems - but it was interesting to see how the lead vocals got divided up as the media focus on the band members changed (ie Cheryl got to sing a lot more in the X Factor years).

The band, led by the brilliantly-named Paul Beard, took an organic approach to the arrangements, with a loose, live band feel that freshened up some of the more familiar numbers. There was even *gasp* a jazz guitar solo in Can't Speak French.

The usual suspects provided the highlights - Something Kinda Ooooh is a perfect thump to the middle of your chest; Call The Shots made 20,000 people swoon; and, after all these years, it's still impossible not to jump to Jump. The band kept alive the tradition of throwing in a recent cover song (Call Me Maybe) to prove how much better their own material is, and Wake Me Up still provides ample opportunity for the quintet to toss their hair in front of a wind machine.

Music is the real winner here, but I'm giving the prize to the only Girl Aloud with a writing credit for last night's set.

Verdict: Nicola wins.

So there you have it. Nicola Roberts is currently the best girl in Girls Aloud. But it could all change, depending on when and where you see the show (NB: nobody sees the show unless their hearts say so). If you're at any of the subsequent dates, put your verdict in the comments box. Or just look at the pretty pictures. It's entirely up to you.

















(images via Pingufivemins, dark1angel and Nuno Goncalves)
SETLIST
Act 1
Sound Of The Underground
No Good Advice
My Life Got Cold
Wake Me Up
Jump

Interlude (Models music video)

Act 2
The Show
Love Machine
Whole Lotta History
Can’t Speak French
Biology

Act 3 (b-stage)
Sexy! No No No
Untouchable
On The Metro
Call The Shots

Act 4
Something Kinda Ooh
Call Me Maybe (cover)
Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me
Something New

Encore
I’ll Stand By You
The Promise

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 singles of 2012

Hello there! Hope you all had a good Christmas. I certainly did, if the number of bottles in the recycling bin are any indication.

Anyway, with the New Year rapidly approaching, it's time for the big TOP TEN of the year. As usual, I've based mine on iTunes play counts (with a little arithmetic to make sure songs released later in the year don't suffer). It's by no means definitive - I seem to have completely ignored some of the year's biggest hits - but if you don't like at least three of the following songs, you're dead in the soul.

10) Cheryl - Call My Name

Old swan dive herself, giving it some welly on a Calvin Harris-produced bum-rattler. "How do you think I feel when you call my name?" she asked. If we used her marital surname, the answer was "very stroppy indeed".

9) Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

Gangnam Style aside, this is the best pop lyric of the year. Over a plinky-plonky xylophone Gotye spends two minutes whining about being dumped when, all of a sudden, his ex pops up and says: "Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over". Ouch!

They'll be teaching this one at the Brit School for years to come.

8) Kanye West and Jay-Z - N****s In Paris

There's a reason why Jay-Z and Kanye performed this seven times a night on their Watch The Throne tour: They're egomaniacs. But this time, they're forgiven. "Paris", as the radio edit was called, is the sound of two mega-stars goofing off and accidentally creating a hit single. That shit cray, indeed.

7) The Staves - Mexico

The Staves beguiling harmonies are a honey trap. They sound like three chaste handmaidens but take a listen to the lyrics of Mexico, and they're asking to be rogered on their lover's bed. Well, I never.

6) Girls Aloud - Something New

I suspect this made the Top 10 out of sheer relief. That Girls Aloud came back and didn't fumble the first single was a miracle. Sure, Something New has clunky bits (the uninspired rap in the first verse) but it's essentially a distillation of everything that made the band great. Sexy, shouty, stylish, skinny and ginger.

5) Marina & The Diamonds - Primadonna

This isn't a pop song, it just sounds like one. Or so Marina would have you believe. But if we paid attention to every pretentious ambition a pop star had for their "oeuvre" we'd never listen to anything.

Primadonna makes this list for one reason: The bit where Marina's voice drops an entire octave as she sings "I know I've got a big ego / I really don't know why it's such a big deal, though." A moment of melodic genius that stops the song being just another Katy Perry knock-off. The remixes were great too.


4) Little Mix - Wings

A fanfare. Some handclaps. Someone says "shhh" when they really mean "shit". Then it all goes a bit Aguilera. There's an almighty bridge, an astounding chorus. And, what's this? A second chorus. Incredible.

Admittedly, the lyrics aren't perfect. Girl Bands have been peddling the whole "you're beautiful on the inside" line since TLC's Unpretty with diminishing returns. But Wings is saved by that almighty military breakdown in the outro. Best pop moment of the year.

3) Alunageorge - Your Drums, Your Love

If anyone is going to save R&B from drowsy bore kings The Weeknd and Drake, it's AlunaGeorge. Mixing spaceship sound effects with the palatable bits of dubstep and chuffing great pop hooks, they should be getting a call from Beyonce's "people" any day now. This reached a wholly unimpressive number 50 in the charts last October. Seriously, what is wrong with you people?


2) Lana Del Rey - National Anthem

A cautionary tale about a wealthy man who seduces a young ingénue ("you tell me to 'be cool' but I don’t know how yet"), only for her to turn the tables in the second verse ("You said to 'be cool'... I said to 'get real'"). A love story for the new age, it should be the theme to Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby.


1) Jessie Ware - Wildest Moments

Wildest Moments is about a girl who threw a cake in Jessie Ware's face at a wedding.Honestly.

"My nightmare of a best friend," Ware called her in this interview, explaining: "I never fight with people, but me and her fight. That's my girl, Sarah, and that’s what Wildest Moments is about."

A ballad with drums the size of boulders, and a heart that's even bigger, Wildest Moments is neither the most obvious, nor the most original, song on this list. But it is absolutely the best.

Happy listening.

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Four songs you may have missed

Oh hi there. Apologies for the total lack of updates since Friday. If it's any consolation, every time you hit the refresh button, I was busy throwing up. Not pleasant.

Anyway, I'm not about to let my recovery get in the way of a blog post. Here are a couple of videos that found their way onto the internet while I had my head down the toilet.

1) Taylor Swift - I Knew You Were Trouble
Should songs be allowed to be this catchy? Maybe, but at the very least the UN should have some sort of monitoring set-up. If this power got into the wrong hands, we'd all be in trouble.




2) Jessie Ware - Sweet Talk
Because kids dressing up as successful pop stars and miming to a backing track is the music video trope that refuses to die.




3) Girls Aloud - Beneath Your Beautiful
Top marks to the Aloud for this cover of the Labrinth / Emeli Sande song in Radio 1's Live Lounge last week. And bonus points for sneaking in the chorus to their latest single, Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me.

It's 100% less ridiculous than the ITV1 documentary on the band's tenth anniversary, which aired last weekend. "During the three-year hiatus, Cheryl had three platinum-selling solo albums, and the rest of the band were busy with projects that were personally important to them as well."




4) Charli XCX - You (Ha Ha Ha)
How Charli XCX isn't on the various "sound of 2013" lists is beyond me. Her latest single, You (Ha Ha Ha) isn't her strongest - a monotonous chorus rescued by a yelping Gold Panda sample - but it's still better than anything on the last Saturdays album.

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Girls Aloud release their Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me video

When Girls Aloud premiered their new single, Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me, last month, I wrote a vaguely critical review ("underwhelming" was the verdict), which earned a frowny-face tweet from the song's composer, Maiday.

Maybe I was blindsided by the uber-conventional structure (we've come to expect Girls Aloud to provide seventeen choruses and a rap and a coda where Sarah sings about vicars) because the song has grown on me since.

The turning point was the band's smouldering performance on Children In Need, but repeated listens have also highlighted the complex vocal arrangements (in particular, the beautiful crescendo before the second chorus) and the thankful absence of a key change. It may be formulaic, and the lyrics are a bit clunky, but it works.

The video helps, too... With shades of The Spice Girls' Goodbye (i.e. it's set in a mansion) it is simple enough not to get in the way of the song, but pretty enough to keep your attention.

7/10

Girls Aloud - Beautiful Cause You Love Me

Oh, and here are some behind-the-scenes shots...

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