Girls Aloud Albums Poll

It's between Chemistry and Tangled Up. The latter was was compellingly heavy and loud and coherent, but Chemistry had those amazing highlights, and even a great trad ballad in Whole Lotta History. I'll go with Tangled Up as the most album-y album.

chemistry>tangled up>what will the neighbours say>sound of the underground>out of control

Chemistry. It would be Neighbours if not for the rubbish charity cover versions. Wake Me Up is still one of my favourites.

Chemistry has some of their best songs but What Will The Neighbours Say is the most consistently brilliant. I'll Stand By You is pretty awful but i've got a certain amount of time for Jump, on the charity cover-version front.

Tangled Up >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the rest

Chemistry easy, but I like em all

tangled up is the album that made me lost interest almost entirely

WWTNS, probably, though chemistry might have dated better (haven't listened to GA in ages cuz in general they haven't dated that well at all)

whole back catalogue is on Spotify by the way; albums, b sides, box set tracks, remixes; the whole bit. hence the thread!
i been binging.

i've said it before, but girls aloud were only ever the third best UK girl group of the 00s

after mis-teeq and who? don't say sugababes please. you're going to say sugababes aren't you.

also why did tangled up make you lose interest :[

Neighbours by itself, just; Chemistry by far if the bonus Christmas album is included. thoug maybe I should relisten to them to make sure.

haven't heard Tangled Up (or subsequent) because the versh with the bonus disc was only available from Woolworths online, who wouldn't ship outside the UK

Tangled Up's bonus disc was a 'megamix' of all the tracks on disc 1. i've never heard it either but i doubt we're missing much. it was mixed by 'Jewels And Stone' whoever that be.

I thought it was meant to be Xenomania club mixes? Still, am not especially botherd about having "gotten off the bus" at this distance.

Tangled Up is the best coherent album, but What Will the Neighbours Say? has most of my favourite GA songs - Graffiti My Soul, for crying out loud!

after mis-teeq and who? don't say sugababes please. you're going to say sugababes aren't you.

well yeah, in every one of their iterations for the first four albums sugababes were just better at...everything, i guess. better performers and singers, more compelling aesthetic, better songs. girls aloud had the wacky-fun-office-party side locked down, i guess? like, whatever.

also why did tangled up make you lose interest :[

cuz it was a bit of a mess and sounded like a parody of their previous nonsense, and the kind of failure that actually retrospectively infected what you'd enjoyed about them before, and a big part of why they've dated badly for me (certainly compared to sugababes and mis-teeq).

A big reason Tangled Up is so impressive is that they changed style fairly drastically but all the tracks feel so WELL-CRAFTED. Like, they really felt TIGHT. It could've been a bit of a mess, but wasn't, and Out of Control ended up being that sloppy mix of disparate styles instead (although still better than SOTU).

cuz it was a bit of a mess and sounded like a parody of their previous nonsense, and the kind of failure that actually retrospectively infected what you'd enjoyed about them before, and a big part of why they've dated badly for me (certainly compared to sugababes and mis-teeq).

is it just the personnel change slash split into solo careers that has prevented this from being true for sugababes/misteeq? None of these people have really distinguished themselves post 2004.

"well-crafted" and "tight" are definitely not adjectives i'd ever employ to describe tangled up. lazy and incoherent, more like. this is an album with "can't speak french" and the unutterably grim "fling" on it, remember (speaking of which, that's one thing i don't do w/r/t at least half the songs on it, looking at the track listing - what the hell are "what you crying for?" and "damn" lol).

not denying that out of control is even worse.

is it just the personnel change slash split into solo careers that has prevented this from being true for sugababes/misteeq? None of these people have really distinguished themselves post 2004.

re: mis-teeq, alesha solo has so little in common with mis-teeq that it doesn't really affect anything. and the decline of sugababes was more boring than actively annoying - they got staid by, i guess, abandoning what made them special - not necessarily a specific sound (they were always quite good genre-hoppers), something more fundamental to their aesthetic/attitude. whereas w/girls aloud, it seemed like they were defending their own aesthetic unto pointlessness and revealing how shaky it was in the first place.

None of these people have really distinguished themselves post 2004.

i do think sugababes' "about you now" is a straight-up classic - the very last time they were worth paying attention to. and idk, but i'm not writing keisha's solo career off yet - she's still interesting enough. and obviously if mutya ever decides to be bothered about making music again i'll be first in line. whereas cheryl's solo career has been mediocrity incarnate, i can't envisage nicola doing anything worthwhile on her own (and always found the reasons she was singled out as totally tedious) and...did anyone anywhere bother to even listen to nadine's single?)

Obv anyone who ever actually invested in the girls in girls aloud already had missed the point.

for me the progression from 'sound of the underground' to 'what will the neighbours say' - from resentful suburban-town teen dreams to a new twenty-something life in the big city - was really emotionally satisfying, the standard trope perfectly played. And then 'chemistry' was like treading water. It has 'whole lotta history', which is stunning, but the rest of it feels like everyone's just trying to do 'what will the neighbours say' again, to recreate that chick-lit charm. I start to feel that there's this forced feeling, this manic slightly desperate edge, like they're trying to get the supercut magpie-pop headline-lyrics xenomania style right (which is funny given these ppl actually are xenomania)... in fact now i'm almost talking myself into liking it, here! Because maybe doing the same things over and over again, being so desperate to convince as yourself, is actually quite a convincing next stage after 'hating yr small town' and 'moving to the city'.

i actually thought WWTNS => chemistry was a quite satisfying move, in the end: it's that chick-lit charm but with a manic celebrity edge - the mania of glamour. even if "biology" still sucks. WWTNS was about oridinary girls who'd moved to the big city to seek fame and fortune, in chemistry they'd found it. tangled up was where it all became really forced to me - or at least, all the old tricks wheeled out again, bereft of point.

I do like "About You Now" but the parent album was very very drab.

I feel like the slide with the sugababes actually is more unforgivable in some ways, like, how could you actively walk away from greatness like that? At least with Girls Aloud it's more like a business that gradually runs out of steam and loses its market, which is a very familiar story.

But I never felt as attached emotionally to Girls Aloud tunes as I do to stuff like "Situation's Heavy" and "Ace Reject" so maybe that's why the betrayal seems sharper.

ha, i definitely agree with being much more attached to sugababes material - which is pretty much the crux of my argument for their superiority, and i'm always surprised that so many disagree - but to me their running out of steam/trying in vain to keep up with pop trends, amidst their personnel changes and drama and so on, felt far more "natural" a decline then girls aloud buying their own hype as an Important British Pop Group and defending that aesthetic at all costs, and in the process exposing it. mutya's solo career was the biggest betrayal, if anything, but it kinda helped that she seemed so half-arsed about it (cuz it meant i didn't have to be bothered either).

girls aloud buying their own hype as an Important British Pop Group and defending that aesthetic at all costs, and in the process exposing it.

how much of this is about h8ing popjustice et al though?

Interestingly Girls Aloud were never ever promoted in Australia, like the record label thought we just wouldn't get it. Which is odd because we get all of your more recent obnoxiously british shit. But the upshot of that is that they don't feel at all divisive to me, like it always surprises me a bit that people even know the individual members' names. I recognise that an Oz perspective is fairly limited in utility though.

They went over to perform Biology on Australian TV IIRC.

The promises of Nicola's solo career rely solely on her voice being the only one that was actively pleasant on her own. I'm no more enthused by the other stuff ("she's hip to the trends!") than you, but I still do like that voice a lot.

Oh and xp Damn and What You Crying For are great.

Where are the "would smash" comments?

xp yeah they did some Australian promo; it was shown in Off The Record.

speaking of which some genius has uploaded all 6 half hour episodes of the Off The Record TV series here http://www.youtube.com/user/GurlsAllowedFan#g/search
i had no idea Cheryl and Nadine were such big mates back in the day, whole thing is amazingly candid.
as Enrique points out on the original Girls Aloud: classic or dud thread from '03, it "pisses on 'dont look back' and ting".

weird that they got sent to .au then though as WWTNS didn't even get released here - in fact iirc the local Chemistry was actually a best-of.

Chemistry. "Swinging London Town" followed by "It's Magic" was their peak, and it all went downhill from there.

Really hope they they don't try and make a comeback album produced by Xenomania. By Out of Control their sound was just so tired.

agreed; "Swinging London Town" followed by "It's Magic" definitely a peak of some kind.

the debut album is loads better than people seem to remember.

It has to be Chemistry for me, at that point it seemed liked they were unstoppable and that Xenomania were full of exciting ideas. In late 2005 for me it was all about Chemistry, Taller In More Ways and Come & Get It, it was a really good time for British pop.

Tangled Up would be a close second, I still enjoy Call The Shots, Can't Speak French, Damn and Fling a lot and it was made even better as they left of the boring covers which were never their strong point.

Sound Of The Underground and Out Of Control had some great moments but weren't good all the way through. Underground seemed like it was a bit rushed and on Control Xenomania sounded tired and low on ideas.

What Will The Neighbours Say still sounds good, it's all over the place but that's part of the appeal. I think they turned into a great band when they put out The Show.

i have to go with the majority and say Chemistry i guess.

Debut album has a lot of charm although comes across slightly Atomic Kitten in places. SOTU is one of my favourite singles ever, though. Tangled Up has the biggest mix of love/hate for me (hate Fling, for example; adore Call the Shots). Tough one..

For me it always comes to the one with the standout tracks; consistency comes second. So Chemistry, for "Biology" and "History" alone. Then Tangled Up>SOTU>WWTNS>Out Of Control.

And yeah, Nicola has by far the best voice (and attitude) of the lot. Of course that just means there's some potential... it'll all probably depend of who does she decide to work with.

Torn between "What Will The Neighbours Say" and "Chemistry".

"Tangled Up" is certainly one of the saddest records I've ever heard. Not just because it's pretty much awful and has dated EVEN WORSE than the four albums preceding it (half of it sounds like 1992), but because I remember certain people bigging it up and talking about how great it was and while it was baffling then it just seems pathetic to read now. As bad as "Fling" off the spotty "Tangled Up" was (Lex is right, the back end of that album is pretty much completely unmemorable), "Live In The Country", "Rolling Back The Rivers In Time" and "Fix Me Up" are EVEN WORSE THAN THAT.

er, I mean "Out Of Control" is one of the saddest records, obviously. "Tangled Up" is just disappointing.

Chemistry is my favourite back-to-front, but really don't care about them much any more. It's just the wrong time for them now.

I love "Damn".

'Jail got bust like bail got dead of the night
The chance stops here stops there it's the tale of the times'

Love that melody. But yeah even though I much prefer TU to the rest of their discography, I don't like it THAT much. 'Close to Love', 'Fling' and 'I'm Falling' are pretty terrible.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

What the holy FUCK!

jeez really?

So the best is last and the worst is first.

wut

what the hell??

does lex have a secret army to spoil Girls Aloud fan polls?

Surely not. Terrible miscarriage of justice.

Well if you take out all the joke votes for "Out of Control", it's in exactly the right order. Good job, probably, something, etc.

I figured Tangled Up would be up there with Chemistry tbh

lol it's like that time the saturdays won whatever ilm poll they won. street teams of mental pop stans = terrifying

these results are out of control!

still baffled by the results of my first poll :/

So over Girls Aloud

I was wrong before. Sugababes are much better.

they really haven't aged well.

the results remind me of the mariah album poll where glitter & chambracelet won.

xpost - They're just going through the anxious interval.

Great picture, baffling poll result.

they really haven't aged well.

reading this I initially agreed but I'd listened to a couple of golden-age b-sides today and if they or anyone else sounded like this now they'd still be my favourite band - i can see why people would be disenchanted with the popjusticey 'Graffiti My Soul' stuff but they're the best and most unique ballads band of the noughties by a lonely mile

"Singapore" still amazing.

otm. I still think they're amazing, though I don't listen to them as much, but whenever I've got a playlist going "Singapore" tends to be on it.

might be my favourite actual band of the 00's.

might be my favourite actual band of the 00's.

having respun the albums over the last few days as part of getting in the mood for the release of nicolas album, i'm now of the same opinion

I think they were great. Sugababes had their moments, and in Mutya an incredible vocalist, but Girls Aloud are far more interesting.

Agreed. I think the general Girls Aloud backlash on ILX is overdone. What Will the Neighbours Say? and Chemistry are still fairly consistently brilliant - the ballads on the former are underrated.

Like that pic uptop:

"I don't care if people think she's the "lead singer", I'm wearing a different dress as well!"

Girls Aloud are far more interesting.

how so? like...what does "interesting" mean in this context?

And, "why because .."

Suagababes never made music that worked when it shouldn't: It always sounded very calculated. Girls Aloud have all these tracks which on paper sound like a horrorshow, but work on record.

Love Machine, Biology, Sexy! No No no, all the various pop Drum'n'Bass/Breakeat tracks tucked away on albums with tweaky acid and Reese bass, that track which sounds like music from Space Channel 5 and Models which is Devo x Betty Boo (actually that sounds AMAZING on paper)

Also Sugababes never had a Christmas album (questionable quality of GA LP acknowledged.)

Plus from a pop culture aspect, the girls "private lives" were far more engaging.

Yeah, but Girls Aloud never made a video where people say to me "Is that you in that lift btw?"

Mark if people say that to you then I would like to meet you in a lift.

Suagababes never made music that worked when it shouldn't: It always sounded very calculated. Girls Aloud have all these tracks which on paper sound like a horrorshow, but work on record.

This is the wrong way about I think. What is startling about the Sugababes is how much more moving than you'd expect their songs can be - "on paper" there is nothing amazing about "Ace Reject" but it's one of the most emotionally affecting pop songs I can think of.

Whereas Girls Aloud sound precisely like the kind of pop group whose songs the makers storyboarded and were high-fiving eachother over before the singers even arrived. The genre collisions are part of what make the music novel but they're so much a trope of pop music now that they're not exactly accidental horrorshows.

oh the guys aren't in the lift. I can't remember now.

anyway, the first dude.

I love Ace Reject, reminds me of late-period Cocteau twins in many ways.

That and Maya, are songs made amazing by the strength of the singing, Mutya's in particular.

Going through some SB songs, 'Virgin Sexy' is a great song with some really awful lyrics. "If you want me, just Google+ me" but what a groove.

Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding reveals she has advanced breast cancer https://t.co/jIRJAplEML

— SkyNews (@SkyNews) August 26, 2020