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18th SEPTEMBER 2009 - WEMBLEY STADIUM
Despite coming together as a shameless marketing ploy, Girls Aloud have survived, avoiding Hear'Say style ignominy by dint of some wonderfully addictive pop tunes and a certain charm.
The girls, Nadine Coyle, Cheryl Tweedy, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, and Kimberley Walsh, came together after an audience vote selected them as the winning girl group in 2002 reality TV series, Popstars: The Rivals. The show adopted a new twist on the Popstars theme, picking opposing boy and girl bands to battle it out in the UK charts, with pop svengali Louis Walsh in charge of the girls while doddery old pop supremo Pete Waterman was in charge of the boys (One True Voice). Waterman's group sank without trace after their debut single, Sacred Trust, failed to make it to No.1 but the girls%u2019 career proved to have legs, in every sense of the word. Their debut single, Sound Of The Underground, was released in December 2002 and stayed at No.1 in the UK charts for four weeks. The single's mock-a-billy beat and attitudinal power-pop stance made a refreshing change from the usual manufactured pap.
After a short break, the girls returned in 2003 to tour with One True Voice. But the tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. A factor manager Louis Walsh blamed on their counterparts. "Being associated with One True Voice was not doing them any favours," he said. Despite that, the girls pressed on with the recording of their debut album, Sound Of The Underground and in March, prior to release of the album, released a new single, No Good Advice which reached No.2 in the UK charts. The album followed in May. To many critics' surprise it was a surprisingly adept collection of electro pop with tracks like Love Bomb and Stop repeating the energetic formula of their first two singles to great effect. The public agreed and the album debuted at No.2 in the UK album charts.
Two more singles followed that year, the ballad Life Got Cold, which reached No.3 in the charts and Jump, an aimless cover of The Pointer Sisters song, which featured on the soundtrack to the 2003 film, Love Actually. It reached No.3 in the charts, helping to buoy sales of the debut album which went platinum after a re-issue at the end of the year. However 2003 didn't end without some controversy. Earlier in the year Cheryl Tweedy was convicted of assaulting a toilet attendant, Sophie Amogbokpa, at a nightclub. Tweedy was sentenced to community service. The victim had claimed the attack was racially motivated, but the singer was acquitted of the charge.
