Girls Aloud
From left to right: Kimberley Walsh, Cheryl Cole, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle
Background information
Origin	London, England
Genre(s)	Pop
Instrument(s)	Singing
Years active	2002–present
Label(s)	Polydor, Fascination
Website	www.girlsaloud.co.uk
Members
Cheryl Cole Nadine Coyle Sarah Harding Nicola Roberts Kimberley Walsh

Girls Aloud are a Smash Hits Poll Winners, TMF award-winning and BRIT Award-nominated British girl group created on ITV1 talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002. The group, consisting of Cheryl Cole (née Tweedy), Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh, has gone on to become one of the most successful pop groups of the decade with a record breaking fifteen consecutive Top 10 singles (including three number ones), four platinum albums (including a number one) and record sales in excess of 4.2 million in the UK alone. They have also scored successes around Europe with Number One singles in Greece and Ireland, as well as making an impact in countries further afield, such as Mexico and Australia.

Produced by British team Xenomania, they are well known for their use of different styles in their songs, taking influences from Electronica, House, Power Pop, and Rock among others, as well as being influenced by different era's of music, "The Show" has a distinctly 80's feel to it, while "Love Machine" and much of the Chemistry album, feel much more influenced by the 60's. They have also been praised for their inventive songs, many of which contain multiple verse and chorus melodies, such as in their 10th single "Biology" in which at least five distinctive sections are heard.

Girls Aloud hold the record for the shortest time between forming and reaching number one in the UK Charts (with their platinum-selling debut single "Sound of the Underground", and have since become one of the few reality television groups to have had continued success with Guinness World Records listing them as the Most Successful Reality TV Group in the 2007 edition. Their record of fifteen consecutive top ten singles is also unmatched by any other girl group beating the Spice Girls' previous record of ten, but not their string of number one's.

For a contemporary pop group manufactured on reality television they have received unprecedented praise from broadsheet newspapers and the rock music press, with publications including the Observer Music Monthly, and the NME giving their music rave reviews, with The Observer calling "Biology" the "single of the decade".

Formation

Girls Aloud were formed on November 30, 2002 in front of millions of viewers on the ITV1 programme Popstars: The Rivals. The concept of the programme was to produce a boyband and a girlband who would be 'rivals' and compete for the Christmas number one single in 2002. Following the initial success of Hear'Say (winners of the original Popstars show), several thousand applicants attended auditions across the UK in hope of being selected for the show. Ten men and ten women were chosen as finalists by judges Pete Waterman, Louis Walsh and Geri Halliwell with Big Brother presenter Davina McCall taking the contestants through the auditions and the shows each week. However, two finalists were disqualified before the live shows began: Hazel Kaneswaren was found to be too old to participate whilst Nicola Ward refused to sign the contract, claiming the pay the band would go on to receive was too poor. Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts were chosen as their replacements, who had made it into the final fifteen, but were not originally chosen for the final ten.

During October and November, the finalists took to the stage participating in week-by-week live performances every Saturday night (alternating between the girls and boys each week). One contestant was eliminated each week (due to polling the least amount of phone votes) until the final line-ups of the boy band and girl band emerged. The five girls who polled enough votes to make it into the band were (in order) Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh, and Sarah Harding, with Javine Hylton missing out on a place in the band, despite previous expectations that she would be placed in the line-up. They called themselves Girls Aloud and were managed by Louis Walsh until 2005 when Hilary Shaw replaced him. The runners up, a boy band called One True Voice were managed by Pete Waterman.

The two bands competed for the number one position in the Christmas Week UK singles chart. Girls Aloud won the battle with their single "Sound of the Underground" (produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania) which stayed at number one for four weeks. Disney Channel viewers later voted this as best single of 2002–2003 at the Disney Channel Kids Awards. Originally tipped to be more successful than the girls, One True Voice released just two singles before disbanding in Summer 2003.

Subsequent career

2002–2004: Sound of the Underground

Main article: Sound of the Underground

Girls Aloud's début album Sound of the Underground 2003.

After the huge success of "Sound of the Underground" the newly formed group took several months to record their debut album.

They followed their début single with the number two hit "No Good Advice" in May 2003. The song received critical acclaim and the video, whilst known to have been the girls' least favourite video due to problems in production, was deemed one of the sexiest videos of the year.

The debut album, Sound of the Underground, was released on 26 May 2003. It went straight in at number two, behind Justin Timberlake's album Justified. One of the tracks, "Girls Allowed", was written for the girls by ex-Westlife star Bryan McFadden while "Some Kind of Miracle" was co-written by former B*Witched star Edele Lynch.