Girls Aloud - Chemistry

Genre pop Publisher Polydor Records External Links Official Website Polydor Records

"We're not going to tell you our names"

There's an esstential contradiction at the heart of Pop. Its history is filled with anonymous person after anonymous person being lifted up and being turned into one of the most famous people of the planet. It's a dream that anybody, yes, even YOU, could be a Pop Star. The other side of the coin, however, is that you're mostly likely not. This little issue has led to, well, let's be honest, a considerable amount of sneering and whining over the years, from moaning about Elvis not writing any of his songs, to the current sport of laughing as another reality show winner bites the dust. If you're one of these people, then Girls Aloud are now laughing at you. Because they're hooked up once again with production team Xenomania, and produced one of the greatest Pop albums in the last twenty years. Just to fuck with your head.

We'll skip past the fabulous opening track, "Models," which makes out with Kraftwerk, showing Coldplay up as the poor chancers that they are, and move on to "Biology." A song straight from Dr. Frankenstein's dungeon, a bluesy opening riff grafted onto relentless Spice Girl-esque Pop. You can hear the glee of Xenomania's Brian Higgins screaming "It's alive!" as the girls rush through "Say you need me and not my dirty brain," the guitars disappearing as the shiny Pop heads towards the exosphere. And, just to bash you over the head with its brilliance, they repeats the trick again in the middle just because they can.

Oh, were you expecting a rest? Sorry. "Wild Horses" starts out in a similar fashion, only this time the intro is carol singing. And then? Well, it takes a left turn at the track and ends up sounding like the KLF's Last Train To Transcentral coupled with Betty Boo's Boomania. Which is, actually, pretty damn near perfect, and if this isn't the next single, I will set myself on fire in the cd:uk studios. Or at least moan about it for a day or two.

If you saw the video for "See The Day," then you could be forgiven for thinking that it's a highly-overblown song, full of histronics and a rather cynical attempt to cash in on a Christmas market. And you could be right. But here, after three songs that pummel you into submission with how sexy, cool, and independent these girls are, their take on D.C. Lee's ballad is something else; a counterpoint to the bravado that came before. This is a song about need, the need for Someone, presented with an orchestration that's only so overblown because it needs to express this deep heartache.

But it's a slipped mask. They don't want you to see it, the pain, the vulnerability. So the next song, "Watch Me Go" (co-written by *NSYNC's JC Chasez, fact fans!) flips all the way back in the other direction, a sexy, sultry, Blondie, and dirty song that should, by rights become extremely popular on the back of the school bus with some of its lyrics: "Quarter past two / I was dressed in red / Tied up to your bed /Begged you on my knees." It even comes with a Daphne & Celeste style chant for this purpose - "I know what you're thinking / You been thinking about my butt." Are they talking about the guy in the song? Are they talking about us? *DIVERTS EYES AWAY FROM NICOLA'S BODY* (the redhead, for those keeping score).

"Swinging London Town" merges Giorgio Moroder with Primal Scream and the Prodigy, and sounds like the girls could kick the shit out of either Bobby Gillespie or Keith Flint, or, more likely, both at once. It's their new life, the one full of fakers, plentiful drugs, cheap sex, and lots of alcohol. And they like it. The final, bonus track, "Racey Lacey," almost tossed on as an after-thought, takes Blur's The Great Escape, removes all the bits that made you want to bash Damon Albarn with a jackhammer, and leaves you with a song that makes the current Britpop revival completely redundant. In three minutes. The Kaiser Chiefs are still hiding underneath the table, and won't come out until the bad girls go away.

Prior to its release, Chemistry was billed by Xenomania as a concept album, although they were rather reluctant to explain further. The most obvious thought is that it's a mixture of all that's great in Pop, remixed and flashed up for the current age. On the other hand, this is more than that; it's an album that may turn out to be as important as ABC's The Lexicon of Love was during the 1980s, a guide to what it's like to love and live in current times, of heartbreak, or care-free enjoyment, and of course, of loud girls. You thought that they would fall apart after one album. They're now the most interesting band in Britain. Funny how things turn out, isn't it?