Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud are a British-Irish pop girl group formed through the ITV talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002. The group's original line-up comprised Cheryl, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. They achieved immediate success with their debut single, "Sound of the Underground", which became the 2002 UK Christmas number one. Girls Aloud subsequently became one of the most commercially successful British girl groups of the 2000s, achieving twenty consecutive top ten singles on the UK singles chart, including four number ones, and two number one albums.
Throughout most of their career, Girls Aloud worked with the songwriting and production team Xenomania, led by Brian Higgins. Their music combined mainstream pop with elements of electronic music, rock and dance, frequently using unconventional song structures and abrupt shifts in style. The partnership produced songs including "Love Machine", "Biology", "Something Kinda Ooooh", "Call the Shots" and "The Promise", and attracted critical acclaim for its inventive approach to commercial pop.
Girls Aloud released five studio albums between 2003 and 2008, including their best-selling album Out of Control (2008). Their first greatest hits collection, The Sound of Girls Aloud (2006), sold more than one million copies. The group has been nominated for five BRIT Awards; "The Promise" won the Brit Award for British Single in 2009. After entering a hiatus later that year, the group reunited in 2012 for their tenth anniversary and embarked on a supporting tour. They announced their disbandment following the tour's final concert in March 2013.
Harding died from breast cancer in September 2021 at the age of 39. The four surviving members subsequently reunited for charitable activities in her memory and returned to performing with The Girls Aloud Show, a concert tour held in 2024. Conceived as both a celebration of the group's catalogue and a tribute to Harding, it became the largest UK arena tour of that year. The group have also overseen a series of anniversary reissues of their recordings.
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