Classic Pop

GIRLS ALOUD

WHAT WILL THE NEIGHBOURS SAY?

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A year on from a thorough 20th anniversar­y reissue of Sound Of The Undergroun­d, Girls Aloud’s second album arrives to coincide with their heart-warming reunion tour. The chemistry with Xenomania fully in place by 2004, a similarly comprehens­ive 3CD set confirms that, really, Girls Aloud were an albums band.

Sure, Love Machine is one of the noughties’ finest singles: being kept off No.1 by Eric Prydz’s Call On Me was the decade’s Vienna vs Shaddap You Face. True, Wake Me Up’s visionary guitars invented Nu-Rave fully three years before Klaxons won the Mercury Prize.

But, while the Aloud’s covers of I’ll Stand By You and Jump (Pointer Sisters, not Van Halen) were better than they needed to be, the original songs elsewhere would have made for far more interestin­g singles. The Love Machine template of going absolutely bananas in the chorus was followed by Here We Go and Thank Me Daddy. Deadlines & Diets neatly diarised life in noughties pop via an arms-aloft ballad, a sway matched by Hear Me Out’s anthemics. Xenomania were frankly showing off in creating a tune as bulletproo­f as Big Brother and not bothering to make it a single.

The B-sides have a lot going on, too: a cover of Hanging On The Telephone is admittedly perfunctor­y, but Androgynou­s Girls’ hectic beats screamed Imperial Phase. Even the previously unreleased Disco Bunny is a banger.

The album’s only failing is the remixes: CD3’s parade of in-house shenanigan­s under the aliases of Gravitas and Tony Lemezma showed Xenomania couldn’t match PWL standards there. The sole external remixer, Manchester duo Flip & Fill, were regrettabl­y basic in overhaulin­g The Show and Wake Me Up.

Throw in a handful of edits for TV performanc­es of the singles and Girls Aloud were making full use of their status. If Deadlines & Diets hinted at the band’s intense workload, at least Brian Higgins’ similarly stringent control in getting his Xenomaniac­s to write bangers to order for Girls Aloud somehow worked. Album filler? Not under Higgins’ watch. JE

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