The Daffy Brilliance of Girls Aloud

Nicola Roberts. Cheryl Cole. Sarah Harding. Nadine Coyle. Kimberley Walsh. You probably don’t know who these women are. You might say to yourself, “Why should I care? I prefer the cold ease of ignorance, and I’m going to stop reading.” You could do that, but you’d be a fool. These women are geniuses of pop music, and together they form the greatest pop group of the new millennium: Girls Aloud.

You have probably never heard of Girls Aloud. Like the Spice Girls and Little Mix, Girls Aloud is a British girl group, which in turn means that we, as Americans, commercially ignore them despite their clear and obvious amazingness. Most American college students could name one or two Spice Girls songs if they really thought hard about it, and naming a Little Mix song might be a lost cause. Stateside, Girls Aloud is the most obscure group of the lot, yet they are empirically the best. They were formed during the 2002 British singing competition “Popstars: The Rivals,” during which they competed against rival boy band One True Voice to create a pop jam so excellent that it would instantly shoot to #1 on the UK charts.

Obviously, Girls Aloud won. Otherwise, this article would be about One True Voice, and what a dark timeline that would be! Girls Aloud has had over twenty songs reach the Top 10 on the UK charts since 2002, while One True Voice disbanded after six months. Their winning song, “Sound of the Underground,” is barely classifiable as pop. It’s a perfect mélange of styles and sounds, combining surf rock, UK garage, 90s hip-hop and classic girl group harmonies to create something that could alternately soundtrack a James Bond film or a night at the disco. “Sound of the Underground” also marked the beginning of their fruitful collaboration with the production team Xenomania, whose experimental compositions proved to be the perfect backdrop for Girls Aloud’s vocals and charm.

A lot of the brilliance of Girls Aloud songs lie in just how weird and varied they are. At its basis, each song’s structure and production is like a funhouse version of pop, willing to play with form and genre until something entirely unique is created. Their 2005 album “Biology” starts off with a stomping blues-rock intro paired with Nadine Coyle’s rough-hewn vocals, and then shifts into a new-wave section awash in breathy coos. It takes almost two full minutes to arrive at anything remotely resembling a chorus, and then the song deconstructs again into a combination of the two previous sections. “Biology” consists of clearly identifiable sub-genres, but the way it mixes and blends is almost thrilling to listen to. Girls Aloud can also pull of an electro-pop tune with the best of them. Tracks like “Call the Shots,” “Something Kinda Ooh” and “Sexy! No! No! No!” may be slightly more straightforward stylistically, but there’s always a delightfully askew element to them that set them far apart from run-of-the-mill pop groups like Fifth Harmony or The Pussycat Dolls.

In most cases, the askew element is the lyrics, which normally range from daffy to nonsensical. A main highlight of the aforementioned “Biology” is Cheryl Cole singing “So I got my cappuccino to go/and I’m headed for the hills again” and selling it with a straight face, and the kicky “Love Machine” contains the gem, “We’re gift-wrapped kitty cats/We’re only turning into tigers when we gotta fight back.” They mean nothing, yet in their complete vacuity they achieve a kind of genius. It’s impossible not to sing along to a Girls Aloud song; the mere act of repeating the words is fun in and of itself. The club-banger “On the Metro” begins with Nicola Roberts (AKA the best member of Girls Aloud”) imbuing “I was in my favorite party spot/sippin’ on my favorite soda pop” with a vigorous snap akin to popping a bubblegum bubble, and it’s these little details and performance techniques that elevate Girls Aloud to a premiere spot in the pop pantheon.

Alas, Girls Aloud disbanded in 2013 after a wonderful eleven-year run, though their music stands the test of time as some of the best pop music of the millennium. Solo careers from Cole and Roberts have yielded some quality jams, as well. Roberts’ Diplo-produced “Beat Of My Drum” is far and away one of the best songs of the decade, and you can see in its production/lyrics the blueprint for such global smashes as “Lean On” and “Bang Bang.” However, the fact that none of these songs were smashes in the United States is borderline criminal. Go to Spotify, look up their greatest hits collection and just get swept away in their daffy brilliance. You may have some new favorite pop tunes thanks to Girls Aloud.