Thursday, October 07, 2004
We'll Stand By Them
Popjustice.com has some information on the new Girls Aloud single which, as you no doubt already know, will be a cover of The Pretenders' 'classic' I'll Stand By You. We've found it quite hard to get excited by the prospect of this, not because we're against the idea of Girls Aloud doing covers per se - we'd love to seem them do a version of Fuzzbox's Pink Sunshine, we can even hear Nicola doing the "When I'm good I'm wicked at the same time" line. Mind you, our fertile imagination means we often hear Nicola saying things to us, some of which aren't mentionable on a family website. Hell, one of them isn't even mentionable on an adult website. But the thing about The Pretenders cover is that it seems very much a step backwards and part of a move to turn them from the electro-crazy glitter fueled ladies that we love into a more sedate, standard and dull girlband. A female Westlife, if you will, and if you've heard Bellefire you'll know exactly what a bad idea that is.
We're sure, however, that it'll sell well, raise the bands profile amongst record buyers of a certain disposition - i.e. those that don't actually like music much - which, in turn, will increase their album sales and lower the chances of them getting dropped due to the public finding it hard to know a good thing even when it dances in front of them in silver, so we can't really complain too much, especially as we've not actually heard the tune yet. This hasn't stopped us holding an opinion on tracks before though; we've been known to dismiss huge swathes of the Top 40 merely on the basis that they have a shit band name. Apparently though, the b-side is nothing short of genius, so we're not ready to give up on the girls yet.
In other Girls Aloud news, the Daily Record reports that our favourite five females are planning on getting matching tattoos, "on our bodies", as Kimberley helpfully points out, so that when they're older they have a reminder of their time together in the band. To illustrate this, the 'newspaper' used a picture of Kimberley and Cheryl kissing. Naturally. Now, call us old-fashioned, but surely all the CD's, DVD's, magazine articles and all the other miscellaneous ephemera that comes with being in a pop band would be an equally permanent, and somewhat less painful, reminder of their time together. We doubt that once the band splits up every photo, sound recording and written word regarding them will suddenly cease to exist - though such a system would have it's advantages - not unless they know something we don't. Perhaps they've found out that, in the future, an evil, book burning, culture hating and generally irksome totalitarian government plans on wiping them out of history. Maybe they've been talking to Busted, who's knowledge of the future - and support for an evil, book burning, culture hating political party - is well known.
We're sure, however, that it'll sell well, raise the bands profile amongst record buyers of a certain disposition - i.e. those that don't actually like music much - which, in turn, will increase their album sales and lower the chances of them getting dropped due to the public finding it hard to know a good thing even when it dances in front of them in silver, so we can't really complain too much, especially as we've not actually heard the tune yet. This hasn't stopped us holding an opinion on tracks before though; we've been known to dismiss huge swathes of the Top 40 merely on the basis that they have a shit band name. Apparently though, the b-side is nothing short of genius, so we're not ready to give up on the girls yet.
In other Girls Aloud news, the Daily Record reports that our favourite five females are planning on getting matching tattoos, "on our bodies", as Kimberley helpfully points out, so that when they're older they have a reminder of their time together in the band. To illustrate this, the 'newspaper' used a picture of Kimberley and Cheryl kissing. Naturally. Now, call us old-fashioned, but surely all the CD's, DVD's, magazine articles and all the other miscellaneous ephemera that comes with being in a pop band would be an equally permanent, and somewhat less painful, reminder of their time together. We doubt that once the band splits up every photo, sound recording and written word regarding them will suddenly cease to exist - though such a system would have it's advantages - not unless they know something we don't. Perhaps they've found out that, in the future, an evil, book burning, culture hating and generally irksome totalitarian government plans on wiping them out of history. Maybe they've been talking to Busted, who's knowledge of the future - and support for an evil, book burning, culture hating political party - is well known.
