Do Girls Aloud actually NEED to release a new album?

yes, they do.

I adored the Lene album when I first got it but the more I go back to it, the more I think Girls Aloud should just re-record it. It's like a collection of demos for them.

I went looking for the Lene LP last weekend. No joy. HMV Oxford Street had a divider for her next to Aqua, but no copies in stock.

I did get the JC record though, which is indeed excellent.

is the full thwack of the whole of what will
the neighbours say on soulseek yet?

No, as far as I know it's not on soulseek at all. Some tracks have filtered out to the masses in other ways, though.

Girls Aloud need to split up and let the fit Irish one (Nadine ?) with the good voice have the solo career.

Really, she makes the others look bad.

It was my understanding that Lene's album wasn't put on general release in the UK so I had to download it and burn it off because I'm buggered if I'm paying import prices.

It is ace but Lene's pice de resistance is co-writing "No Good advice".

Nothing substantial, just like the cover.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/tubesocks/123.jpg

Reminds me of
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/tubesocks/charliesangels10.jpg & http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/tubesocks/voltron.gif

Alone we are nothing, together we are an unstoppable force for good!

i just got this and Gwen Stefani in Woolworths buy one get one half-price.

'Wake Me Up' is the best non-single i've heard so far (halfway through 1st listen).

Haha, I just put this on, myself - I'm quite excited actually.

yeah me too

ok 'deadlines & diets' is actually quite good. I expected to have to skip the slow ones.

Amazingly, my favourite song so far - 'I Say A Prayer For You'. So they can do ballads, then. Blimey.

This might just be me but the before the vocals kick in on 'I Say A Prayer For You' it reminds me a lot of The Handsome Family. In a good way.

omg I've been hearing the lyrics of "Love Machine" wrong all this time! I thought it was "your car's late, a big mistake, you gotta hang around in the limo for as long as I take" but it's actually "your CALL's late, a big mistake, you gotta hang around in LIMBO for as long as I take" which is just as good.

Something about this isn't quite clicking right now. They may well live to regret top-loading the album with singles. Equally, I may well live to regret listening to it on shuffle, because the iPod is determined to topload it with the ballads, which just doesn't put you in the mood for anything. I may also not be listening to it at sufficient volume, and my stereo *koff* may be breaking down in any case.

Plus, 'Real Life'... isn't really very good, is it?

I know what you mean but really it's a side-effect of 1) having heard so much of the album already - they've released 4 singles from it already! plus "Here We Go" - and the fact that there are so many ballads, all of which are great but not massively immediate ("Deadlines & Diets" aside). So it hasn't really gelled yet. But it will, because I can't get enough of the bangers which I hadn't before including "Real Life" but especially "Graffiti My Soul" and "Wake Me Up".

On the other hand - Graffiti My Soul. I was gonna make some dead-clever point about how this was the first release date I'd been anticipating in goodness knows how long and hwo the internet and having to write about the record may have altered my perceptions and expectations but - SPIKE HEELS AN' SKINTIGHT JEANS GOTTA FIST FULL OF LOVE IT'S COMING YOUR WAY BABY!!!

Best description I've read of Graffiti My Soul: the second coming, with NINJAS.

There isn't a bad moment on this.

It might actually be better than 'We Didn't Say That!'

To my mind both albums do actually sound like greatest hits packages, in that almost every song on both of them would or have made great singles. They've managed to get my end of year vote two years running (although 2003 they have drawn with "Kish Kash", not sure).

I haven't raved about this album here yet, wtf!

It is pretty much perfect. The sequencing is odd - "I'll Stand By You" between "Love Machine" and "Jump", wtf, also the two ballads to close it make for a very muted ending which on first listen is a bit of a let-down. However. They're REALLY GOOD - especially Nicola's solo one, she sounds so sweet and vulnerable! Taking the whole 'girl singing into her hairbrush to herself' trope to its logical conclusion, ie it actually sound like it was recorded in her bedroom. "Big Brother" is so big and maximalist, I'd say that a remix from someone like Armand Van Helden would make it the best thing ever were it not for the fact that they have totally pre-empted that - no remix could make it better.

Cis and I were talking about how Sound Of The Underground epitomised a certain type of small-town mindset: the teenage girl gang hanging around on street corners, bored out of their skulls with provincial life and provincial boys, longing to escape. And What Will The Neighbours Say? is the sound of those girls five years on, career girls in the big bad city and loving it, supremely confident and sassy but not yet world-weary. "Thank Me Daddy" may thus well be the key song on the album.

(nb Cis was the one who thought of this theory)

btw who is going to see them on TOUR? I am going on May 29, and it will be so so exciting.

I'm growing to love the sequencing. It's like a carpet bombing with the four singles upfront, and then the group troups move in to shore everything up.

'cept "I'll Stand By You" is not a BOMB, it is a BALLAD.

Can we all now admit "Love Machine" is better than "The Show"? Like I said at the time, riot grrrl Stray Cats.

I've always thought "Love Machine" was better! Though either would've been my single of '04 anyway.

"Wake Me Up" is being rerecorded with less alcohol references apparently so it's more suitable for The Kids.

Also can we talk about how "Deadlines And Diets" SO should've been the theme tune to Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason instead of Jamie Cunting Cuntum doing Evercunting Cunt.

(xpost NO, does that mean "Graffiti My Soul" is being re-recorded with less fisting references? and surely it is too late as the kids have had 1 1/2 months to be corrupted so far?)

Also, I wanna reiterated the point I made on my blog (and backed up by Ed O), that "Real Life" is a blatant rip-off of the great overlooked Europop song of 2004, "Voce Mi Aparecu" by Kaleidoscopio.

Can I add another vote to "Love Machine" over "The Show", although both obviously kick arse. They seem to wheel out the monster single for the second release from both albums ("No Good Advice" over "Sound Of The Underground").

The Show's video was better though!

yes, by the slightest of margins... Cheryl's mouth shaping that perfect O in "Love Machine" counts for a lot.

Can we rate GA videos?

1. Life Got Cold
2. The Show?
3. Love Machine?

1. The Show
2. Love Machine
3. No Good Advice (it's all in the surf guitar bit: first time round the girls hold these perfect blank still life poses, second time they nod their heads and give themselves over to the music, still in this absorbingly blank way)
4. Life Got Cold
5. Sound Of The Underground
...
...
476389282. Jump

(I have not seen I'll Stand By You!)

WHY IS NO-ONE GOING MENTAL ABOUT HERE WE GO IT COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND IS WOW, it totally lifts the second half of this album from "really good" to "this is the second half of the best album I've heard this (er, last) year".

B...b..but the TRENCHCOAT!

I don't remember the trenchcoat! However your No 1 placing has inspired me so much that I will see if I can retrieve my Life Got Cold single later on and watch it.

Greg have you heard the Lene version of "Here We Go"? It was on her album in the 03, it's big and brassy.

"Real Life" is going to make a lot more sense when hot weather rolls around y'all.

Also, am I the only one who thinks the haircuts they give in The Show are actually really good?

(I haven't seen it either, I don't think! I mean, I have a pretty strong memory of it coming up on The Hits but like when I think back it's pretty undeniable that there are only three of them in the video and they're all bloinde and singing an Atomic Kitten track).

The trenchcoat is amazing! I once wrote a girl a letter that was actually an annotated issue of 'I

grr! That should read:

The trenchcoat is amazing! I once wrote a girl a letter that was actually an annotated issue of 'I <3 Pop' magazine, the bit about Life Got Cold like overspilled the page.

I haven't heard the Lene! Is it even better?

Aw! I want boys to write me letters like that.

You must hear the Lene album, it is like a collection of Girls Aloud demos! I still haven't decided who does "Here We Go" better though: I think the Girls win on the verses, but Lene bellows the chorus better.

Another classic moment in the Love Machine video - the bit where, as they're teetering into the club, Cheryl gets distracted by a band member and the other Girls have to drag her away.

I really miss I <3 Pop actually, I think I secretly edited and wrote it in my sleep, they covered exclusively Avril, GA, Gareth, SC8 and Busted, never Blue or Westlife or Holly Valance or anyone boring like that. I have an ILP wallet that says L8R SK8R on it and I would so carry it everywhere if 2005 wasn't "get straight" year.

Lex, what do you think of Ciara's silly top on the Goodies vid?

If you don't want that wallet I'll have it kthx.

Right, the reason this thread makes me slightly sad (as well as very happy) is that I DON'T HAVE MUSIC VIDEO TELEVISION ANY MORE. I have been bereft of it since October. This is a total nostalgia trip for the days when I'd spend like half a day flicking between TMF, The Hits and MTV Base non-stop. So... I haven't seen the Ciara vid :(

The top she's wearing on her album cover is awesome, though.

I have music TV. Unfortunately, it's Polish, so all I can watch all day is Green Day, HIM, and Polish rap.

Guys, I'm going with "meh" on this one. And I may never dance to 'Love Machine' again.

1. I'll Stand By You
2. Hear Me Out
3. Here We Go
4. The Show

Jesus, even I don't like my taste in music anymore!

all those songs are great, Greg!

every single Girls Aloud ballad ever has a way of insinuating itself into your soul without you noticing (while you're being stunned by the full-on assault of the other songs).

Not "I'll Stand By You."

including 'I'll Stand By You'! I am really moved by their version of it. my best friend and I held hands when they sung it at G-A-Y the other week, it was a beautiful moment.

Ah it's become an anthem now has it?

yes! there may even have been lighters, aloft.

somewhere between go-go's and blondie is girls aloud.
they are so sexy,their videos are nice and they have charisma.they put videos and games on their cdroms.

"I'll Stand By You" works really well in the context of the album, although that's probably by coincidence rather than design.

I was playing "Smackdown vs Raw" on the PS2 whilst listening to the album, and Ric Flair's pre-figure four strut was timed in synch to "Jump", so that gets points as well.