girls aloud

[11] Martha Wainwright, ‘Bleeding All Over You’

Martha Wainwright

Arthur, as Junior once christened her, is hit-and-miss; capable of lovely stuff, but equally adept at overwrought meanders. Must be a family thing. I liked a couple of thirds of her debut – then this came along and bowled me over. It’s an enviable skill to turn out a gorgeous, heartbreaking song with the word “cowshit” sitting pretty in the middle.

But it’s not all about cowshit. It’s about the unlucky point in the triangle; it’s about the hooks, picked out with every perfect pluck of the guitar; it’s about her generosity. The first day I heard it I listened to it eight times over, and I’m still not tired 30 plays later.

Doing the Jukebox Junior thing on the bus isn’t the ideal way to watch reactions, but this is suited to a blissful, concentrated listen anyway. She’s heard it often enough, and was once seen swaying to it with wavy arms – like a rather-more-clothed Tales Of The Unexpected silhouette – but when I asked if she knew who it was, she replied, “Lykke Li?” No. “Girls Aloud?” No, her name begins with M. “Is it Mummy?”

[18] Vampire Weekend, ‘A-Punk’

Vampire Weekend

So the critics’ choice of 2008 was a bunchy of preppy American lads doing a Strokesian (look it up) take on Paul Simon’s Graceland. You could’ve seen that coming a mile off. What should’ve been arch, alienating, irritating, pompous, Sting-esque and – frankly – an utter mess, turned out to be the most delightful set of pop tunes since The Sound Of Girls Aloud. That good. ‘A-Punk’ happens to be one of the more conventional arrangements on the album, but it’s so infectious I’m taking the rest of the week off.

You have to catch Junior in the mood and – whereas she usually spins out to all things VW – this time she sat on the rug and asked for, yes, Girls Aloud. She’ll have to wait, probably. If it’s any consolation, Juniorer rocked from side to side, bang on the beat.

[13] Oasis, ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’

For all his habitual recourse to magnetic poetry set gobbledigook, Noel did once have a knack for connecting with the nail. To start off a song called ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ with the line “Is it my imagination, or have we finally found something worth living for?” takes a special kind of understanding of a mindset most of us have found ourselves in at some point or other. That the whole concept is pulled off with massive T. Rex riff steals and a vocal of absolute dunderheaded belief from the mighty Liam only underlines its gauche brilliance.

Junior misheard the title: “Are they in a hole?” Well, yes, usually – ha ha ha. It nearly works. She pulled a few snarly faces to match the raucous rock’n’roll but mainly busied herself with choosing the next records to play. “Put on the pink one [an odd special edition cover for Wham!’s The Final] first, then Girls Aloud.” I left that to Mum.

[14] Warren G. & Nate Dogg, ‘Regulate’

Well, Junior’s reactions were many and varied: “Can I play my guitar, please?”; “Can I have Girls Aloud on, please?”; and, to me asking why she was laughing, “Because your dancing’s funny.”

It’s a difficult record to react to, anyway – so laidback, so smoooooth, so easy on the ear yet sneaking in a hard-edged undercurrent. “Hard-edged” hardly suffices, really, what with Nate Dogg wiping out all those muggers. But the groove is purest r’n’b, destined for the coffee table if it wasn’t so accomplished and the lyric so banal in its violence. That’s G-Funk. Still gangsta, but all sophisticated, like.

[17] Primal Scream, ‘Rocks’/’Funky Jam’

For ‘Rocks’, Junior clapped her hands in a far more robust way than Bobby “Dough Wrists” Gillespie ever mustered, before whipping out the plastic guitar once more to throw some hammy rock poses. And let’s face it, Give Out But Don’t Give Up was all about the hammy rock poses. After 1991’s Screamdelica and the 10-minute bliss-out track of the same name on 1992’s Dixie-Narco EP, ‘Rocks’ was a massive disappointment, but its puppy-dog enthusiasm is infectious and it warrants a place in the chart for the number of times I played it while trying to like it. Wow, that endorsement rings out.

‘Funky Jam’ was drowned out by the squalling bedlam of bashed plastic guitar buttons, and maybe that was a blessing. From what I could make out, it’s become leadfooted in the intervening years – and it never had convincing funk chops in the first place, despite the presence of Godfunker George Clinton. Triumphs all round, then. Junior just kept playing the riffs, asking her mum each time, “Do you recognise this one?”

Afterwards, I showed her the cover of the latest CD to land on the doormat. “Do you know who this is?” Junior studied it for a moment: “Girls Not Allowed”.

[2] Michael Jackson, ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’

It’s well-established that Junior’s a bit of a dancer, shaking down to everything from The Jam to Prince to Girls Aloud and all the way round to entire LCD Soundsystem albums – so why does Jacko draw a blank? Does she find it difficult to listen with complete abandon in light of all the allegations against him this past decade or so? Can any of us listen now without the music passing through the prism of approbation?

In this case, Junior’s annoyed that her nursery rhyme CD isn’t playing; Dad’s “Just one song and then I’ll put it on” is cutting no ice. As for the rest of us, I think it’d be a pity if we couldn’t enjoy the music at its base, uncomplicated level, but it’s tricky to forget the freak the dazzling young Michael would become.

It’s a pity because this is easily one of the most exciting records ever made. Inspired, presumably, by Star Wars, Michael lets rip with dog-whistle nonsense about “the Force” over planet-circling strings and bombastic brass to create a vertiginous dancefloor ride that, by rights, will have you blowing chunks. That’s a good thing, incidentally. As an example of what the adolescent Jacko and mighty producer Quincy Jones could achieve together, it’s a thrilling signpost to Off The Wall and, er, Thriller; a line in the sand, leaving disco over there and, over here, hyper-tooled ‘80s gold-bar soul.

[14] Blondie, ‘Sunday Girl’

Light as air, carefree and – what? – hard to get? Junior’s mum pointed out that Junior and Juniorer are both Sunday Girls (“You were born on a Sunday, J” “I was very born on a Sunday”) but perhaps not in the way Debbie Harry is hinting. We all love the song, know the words – even the French ones on this Best Of version – and Junior sways in front of her sister, hips in time to the gossamer rhythms.

Blondie were bang into their flow by this point, succeeding ABBA as the singles band du jour, knocking the classics out at a rate to make Paul Weller jealous; not that he was far behind. I’m always seduced by a band that respects the single, that can put so much care in for so sustained a period. You know the suspects: Wham!, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Girls Aloud… hmmm. I feel like I’m coming out.

I shared a bed with Debbie Harry last year. Well, she draped herself across it, while I perched at the end, asking questions she’d answered a thousand times before. In all the excitement, my tape recorder broke, but she let me have an extra five minutes once I’d taught myself shorthand. Lovely. Anyway, that’s one for the After Dinner circuit.

The Ting Tings, ‘That’s Not My Name’

As the 1969 Top 20 hobbles to a thrilling conclusion, we’re hop-skip-jumping all the way to the present and a record that Junior went loopy for when it appeared on one of those new-fangled MTV channels last week. We’re even a bit slow off the mark here, as it’s been toppled from an unlikely chart summit by hit machine Rihanna, but it’s still the breakthrough smash of the year – a grand departure from its achingly hip, limited 2007 run.

You’ve heard the comparisons – Blondie (yes, the cool-eyed Katie White is indeed blonde and, in a slightly darkened room, stunning), ‘Mickey’ (the star-jumping rhythm and lairy rap-song straight off Toni Basil’s much mis-(or not)-construed 1982 chartbuster), The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’ (that rhythm again, really, also massaged for Girls Aloud’s ‘No Good Advice’) – but, like the best pop puffery, ‘That’s Not My Name’ blends influences to form a monster that stomps, jerks, twitters and rocks in its own nation-enslaving way.

We’re mad for it right now, pure victims of hype if you see things through those spectacles. Sometimes there’s no hype without fire. As the record builds to its multi-layered, full-rocking coda, Junior’s reaction is a spinning, leaping, head-shaking frug from dining room to living room – pop star in infancy.

And while we’re sojourning in 2008, here are some of her other recent pop moments:

– “She’s got hair like me” to Diana Ross gamely keeping it all together in the ‘Chain Reaction’ video
– “Black and gold, black and gold, black and gold – that’s your favourite, Daddy” (not sure who’s feeding her these lies)
– Sticking her hand in the washing machine for the nth time one day, she’s told to leave it alone before defiantly reaching in again and pulling out the new Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan album

For Junior, music is everywhere.

[14] Girls Aloud, ‘Sexy! No No No…’

Girls Aloud, ‘Sexy! No No No…’

Junior jangled her keys to this one. I say “her keys”: she’d nabbed Nanny’s spare set from the dining room table and was refusing to give them back, a proper feisty Girl Aloud with no intention of relinquishing a winning position against all odds. They’re a phenomenon, this lot, showing staying power only rivalled by the execrable likes of Westlife and their peculiar hold on a lobotomised fanbase. That Girls Aloud have managed it while reeling out one inspired pop hit after another is something to be applauded, and cherished.

There are signs, however – sadly – that they’re slipping. The album Tangled Up is bland by their freewheeling standards, while ‘Sexy! No No No…’ is good but it’s no ‘Biology’ nor ‘Long Hot Summer’. It’s here by dint of its surprisingly forthright power, demanding inclusion simply because the consequences of omitting it are too chilling to imagine. It’s one big tease, lyrically and melodically, as the girls discover the potential of remaining demure and the writers experiment with the dispensation of a recognisable chorus. Bravo. I think.

[1] Dexys Midnight Runners & The Emerald Express, ‘Come On Eileen’

It’s the last song of the night, the bride and groom are long gone and we’ve kicked our legs to ‘New York, New York’ and swayed to ‘The Power Of Love’. A familiar, skipping bassline starts up, with the fiddles in close attendance. The dancefloor is flooded with hardy revellers, linking arms in the auld tradition. One lad stands scowling at the side, he’s had a good night but this strikes a sour note yet again. Doesn’t he like the song? He bloody LOVES it.

How did it come to this? A visionary work struck an unexpected note with the public, sold way over a million and became the wedding/school disco standard, danced along to by a pissed-up crowd who’d normally claim to dislike it but find it a “laugh” in a champagne haze. It cheapens it, steals its wit, strips its pathos.

How did it come to this? Kevin Rowland was no callow youth; Dexys had already had one Number One, had already released the best album of the decade and had already tried a couple of styles and line-ups. 20 years later, apparently free of his cocaine mania, Rowland was in full confessional mode, claiming culpability for all manner of sins. He said he stole the raggle-taggle gypsy style of ‘Come On Eileen’ and beyond from former bandmate Kevin Archer, who’d formed the Blue Ox Babes and played Rowland some demos. Whatever, Archer didn’t have the extra spark to turn ideas into tunes. Rowland ran with it and the rest is history. Blue Ox Babes were painted as Dexys copyists in the press and the rest is, er, history.

‘Come On Eileen’ is hugely ambitious. Strings, tin whistles, banjos, pipes, and pianos should make a folk song, but end up with a rousing piece of power pop. Sheer bombast allows Kev to sneak in some racy lines, while at the same time hiding some beauties, “moved a million hearts in mono”, “beaten down eyes sunk in smoke-dried faces”. It was a revelation until it was a cliché. I guess that’s the way things go.

Of course I’d like my daughter to love my favourite single. She stood in front of the stereo, palms face down on the coffee table in “let’s see if this is all you’ve cracked it up to be” style. I could handle her snubbing Bowie, The Jam, Scritti Politti, even Girls Aloud, but this, this is different. She dances. All the way through. And she doesn’t link arms with anyone.