I'm a big fan so maybe i am biased...?

I know Girls Aloud had huge success especially for a girl band. They sold out so many arenas and sold out tours when not many girls bands can do that right now....21 top ten singles...six platinum albums...four number 1 singles...two number 1 albums....nine million record sales...20 consecutive top 10s record...a million selling greatest hits...5 brit awards nominations performance...brit award win for best single...their own itv special ha...dolls...endorsements..cheryls career etc - its a huge success and for ten years which is almost unheard of for a girl band.

But...
I still think they should have been even massiver...
It stuns me that amazing records like Love Machine, No Good Advice, The Show etc have ONLY sold 200,000!? copies each!?

I guess i think they deserve the sorta 1D Level of international success too - selling stadiums etc - they really were that good in my eyes. They had so many incredible unreleased singles too...Graffiti My Soul, Watch Me Go, Girl Overboard, Rolling Back The Rivers, Fling, etc etc! i could go on...They really were special that band. I think what everyone always said was you could get any five females and it would work and The Sats have proven that actually thats not true...

What does everyone else think did they deserve to be even bigger than they were!??? They had some INCREDIBLE OUTSTANDING singles and all the albums had NO FILLER. There tours were must see. Even the B Sides are amazing...

I wanted them to break Europe USA. Sell stadiums in the UK they could have done it in their OOC peak.
Why did bar Cheryl non of their solo careers take off?

Found some album sales....

SOTU 360,000
WWTNS 600,000
Chemistry 380,000
Tangled Up 500,000
Out Of Control 800,000
The Sound Of Girls Aloud 1,200,000
Ten 160,000

Not too shabby but Chemistry should have been bigger, so should have Ten.

Why do boybands have it so easy it's ridiculous. Gary barlow and Westlife can fill stadiums despite being average...

I think they should of cracked America, did they even try? With their looks alone would of got them some form of success there?

How good are these songs, seriously!!!!!!!!!!!1

Graffiti My Soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=broMZFPjh94

Girl Overboard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akmSBptcE7M

Fling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXkiRJBspug

Watch Me Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ8B7-62nTY

Waiting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WAG9QaN3Kg

Girls Allowed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-UbReQ1QkA

Dog Without A Bone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0UV95Zhqag

Control Of the Knife
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZjuBGeZAeg

Black Jacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGjfz0bDaNg

Revolution In The Head
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKpgwkMPAhk

Models
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGskeGLihZc

Blow Your Cover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsZSMItGquU

On The Metro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0-wv6vi990

SERIOUSLY!? How good is this band....
Boybands can release any old tripe and it will sell as Melanie C once said.

I thought the thread title was odd before I entered because I thought they were THE biggest girl group of the past few years. But then I saw the numbers and was a bit surprised. I thought they would have sold way more. I'm not a fan but they did have some good songs and a huge profile. I'd be expecting The Saturdays to be posting those kinds of sales, to be honest.

I wouldn't have thought it'd have been down to looks. I reckon they had material strong enough to make a good go of it in the USA.

but teenage boys don buy records tbh

From a purely selfish point of view I couldn't care less about them going to America.

They gave us in the UK a record and a concert a year... pretty much functioning continuously.

If they'd have gone to the US that would have interfered with what I in the UK was getting from them.

They were fantastic, they should have been much bigger. But I have a feeling if they had toured the whole world they may have burnt out quicker.

Their USA debut should have been Fling/The Promise/Love Machine
they should have done it in 2009 instead of going on the break....

we all think the bands we like should be bigger

To be fair I think they were as big as they deserved to be. Don't get me wrong, I like a number of GA songs - Rolling Back The Rivers In Time is fantastic - but they were probably as successful as they were ever going to be given the lack of genuine talent amongst the five of them.

200,000 sales was very good by mid-00s standards (even today that's good sales tbh). Sales were lower them, songs that big if released today would probably be selling twice as much.

Girls Aloud were very successful anyway, so I don't think they needed anymore success. However, I think they should've continued on as a group rather than splitting to do solo careers.

"Something Kinda Oooh" was popular at cheerleading camps apparently. They probably could have had a few hits in America, then maybe Cheryl wouldn't have got fired from the X Factor..

I don't think Mel C is in the right position to class anything as "tripe", but Girls Aloud did indeed have a few Album tracks that deserved a wider audience.

Unfortunately Girls Aloud were a sign of their time. You need to remember in the early/mid 00s people still bought singles on CDs - not as easy as it is today, hence why their sales are a lot lower. You just need to take a look at the sales of Untouchable to see how big their sales could have been. It's a bit annoying to be honest because bands like the Spice Girls and Atomic Kitten will be considered to be more successful sales-wise but in my opinion (and probably most others) Girls Aloud were the better group.

I think one of the reasons Girls Aloud were so critically acclaimed is that they made good pop albums - unlike most other pop groups. You just need to listen to The Saturdays albums - the singles are the only good songs and the rest are all mediocre at best. It is a shame that songs like 'Graffiti My Soul', 'Real Life', 'Swinging London Town', 'Close To Love', 'Miss You Bow Wow' (I could go on for days) were never released but in my opinion their record company wanted them to appeal to a young audience (especially in the early days), hence why songs like Love Machine were chosen over Graffiti My Soul.

What baffles me the most is that Girls Aloud could have had so many number ones if they had released the single in a different week. In most cases they were beaten by a completely naff single that they ended up out-selling in the long run. Songs like 'Love Machine', 'Biology', 'Something Kinda Oooh' and 'Call The Shots' should all have been number ones in my opinion.

I just hope that in 10 years time, the Girls Aloud legacy isn't forgotten about. Their sales may be easy for other bands to overtake in this day and age but the quality of their music and longevity of their career needs to be admired.

Girls Aloud were only so good because of Xenomania and that is fact not opinion, Brian Higgins crafted them into what they become without his production half of their singles would have been very average pop songs.



Because women buy records just as much for the fact they fancy the males in those bands over liking the actual music. Again that is fact not opinion.

On the flipside not many straight men will buy a record by a female band however they will leer over their videos/calendars.

They're probably all a bit bigger now, at least a size and in some cases, maybe two.

This is very true. As a straight male, I can say listening to female pop music is social suicide.

They were one of the most successful acts to ever come out of a reality TV show. It would have been cool if they had tried to crack the US, but they did quite well really. I liked their music and I still listen to it now.

It's hard to answer that when I'm not sure what you're quality framework is, i.e. what makes an Outstanding Single in your estimation?

I think GA made a number of original singles 'Sound of the Undergroud', 'No Good Advice', 'Sexy! No, No, No', 'Biology'. These included some interesting structures and sounds. I think they should have given more prominence to Nicola in the singing (and maybe the writing?).

I think their female sensibilities were good, they could be sexy and assertive at the same (a bit like the Sugababes). Although I'm not sure if male audiences always appreciate that side of girl groups.


I much prefer the Sugababes

Same here, but I have about 10 CDs from both the groups.

Sound Of The Underground is, IMO, the best ever winner's single from a talent show. It's because of this great start that they had the success that they had.

Certainly, Cheryl could have done with being a size 12 but the rest were okay.

The biggest mistake they ever made was having a break in 2009. I believe Cheryl's solo success was always destined for Girls Aloud if they had released an album in that year, they would have been so close to stadium sized tours, they were selling out the O2 4 or 5 times over, it was ridiculous.