Jump (For My Love) (Single) - Girls Aloud

...other songs by the girls, Jump is a track that actually improves upon each listening.

"Girls Allowed" is a slight letdown, then. Featuring the same upbeat musical overtones (big bass noise, shining keyboard synths and a highly polished, mechanical sound), it falls down at the chorus. Whilst the verses are nothing special to talk about, they do build up a nice sense of tension before being totally let down by a poor chorus, ...
...it is a cover version, Jump manages to be better than the original, but having said that - neither version is up to much. Girls Aloud have released much better songs, and this is a slight blip on their record. Alright, so it was released at the start of their careers, and for an album soundtrack, but that doesn't excuse the overproduction evident on all three songs. I can't recommend this single, simply because there is much better pop music out ... more

So now that Radiohead has changed musical history forever and we have all been touched by the everlasting spirit of Thom Yorke's mastery, people seem to have forgotten the true heroes of modern British music. Whilst we have a very healthy/overcrowded boys with guitars scene, recently the charts have been taken over by identikit American singers and bands, all of whom are produced by either Will.i.AM. from the Black Eyed Peas or Timberland, and all of whom sound, look, talk, and dress in exactly the same way. Pop music is dying a death. Radiohead may very well be revolutionising our minds, but we still need other bands to stand up and show the world that Britain still makes good pop music, dammit!

Girls Aloud, step up.

Who would've thought that the saviours of British pop music would be five girls from different backgrounds, each with their own distinctive personality? We've got "Singer Girl" (Nadine), "Commoner Girl" (Kimberly), "Rough Girl" (Cheryl), "Alcoholic Girl" (Sarah) and "The Ginger One" (Nicola). Together, these five girls have established a new brand of music: Manufactured Pop. They were brought together by the public on a TV show, and went on to score a No 1 with their first single "Sound of the Underground", which was quickly followed by a succession of hit songs. It is probably entirely honest to say that the pop scene in Britain is made up of Girls Aloud and the Sugababes, and nobody else. Many will see this as a reason to despair and throw things, but when you get down to it, really - they do tend to make good songs.

What? Seresecros admires Girls Aloud, and not just in that slightly creepy way all men do? Yes, 'tis true, and I'm not ashamed to say it. They have not once spark of originality about them, but their music tends to be experimental, interesting, and crucially, fun to listen to. Their songs are written and played by other people; they rely heavily on vocal masks, but they do sing their own songs, and they do have a vocal aesthetic that links together and works, strangely enough.

Richard Curtis released his politically loaded film "Love Actually" a few years back at Christmas, and hired a whole bunch of British Pop stars to appear on the soundtrack, including Girls Aloud and The Sugababes. The contribution from Girls Aloud, "Jump", is a cover of a song made marginally popular by The Pointer Sisters back in The Disco Age (an age which I believe comes somewhere between the Iron Age and The Bronze Age). Produced by Xenomania, the song is updated dramatically. The girls all share vocal duties for once, instead of handing everything to Nadine, and the pop bounce of the song is set up by the electronic tags of the bass guitar and drumbeat. The mechanical sounds whizzing around and "crunking" synths behind the girls vocals drives the song forward and provides a pulsating-quick song, which races through the verses to get to the chorus. "Jump! For my love/Jump in! And feel my touch" the girls sing. The song is about demanding a lover to perform increasingly dangerous sexual acts, a topic too often ignored by modern artists. The beat of the song is strong, and it stays in your head after listening to it - unlike several other songs by the girls, Jump is a track that actually improves upon each listening.

"Girls Allowed" is a slight letdown, then. Featuring the same upbeat musical overtones (big bass noise, shining keyboard synths and a highly polished, mechanical sound), it falls down at the chorus. Whilst the verses are nothing special to talk about, they do build up a nice sense of tension before being totally let down by a poor chorus, which sounds like a choir of 5 year olds. "If you want it/come and get it" is a tired musical staple, and it doesn't work here, either.

Keeping it camp, the final track on the single is "Grease". Yes, THAT Grease. It's a clippety-cloppety sort of song, with bottles being jangled and xylophones going berserk for no reason, and in no time scale discernable to man. The original version comes from a film I truly, truly hate (c'mon! John Travolta has creepy eyes and Olivia Newton John looks like Vincent Price). Bearing that in mind, I have to say the original version has a kitsch charm which is all but wiped out here by the musical arrangements. Does every song have to be filled up with synths? The girls sound tired and lazy, their connection to the song suffers as a result, and the song falls apart.

Girls Aloud may be innovative (especially recently), but here they rely on old songs to buoy up a single release, which is tired before it even finishes the second song. The B-Sides are poor, which lets down the main single. Even though it is a cover version, Jump manages to be better than the original, but having said that - neither version is up to much. Girls Aloud have released much better songs, and this is a slight blip on their record. Alright, so it was released at the start of their careers, and for an album soundtrack, but that doesn't excuse the overproduction evident on all three songs. I can't recommend this single, simply because there is much better pop music out there. Okay yes, not much, because as I've said Girls Aloud and the Sugababes are the only pop artists worth their salt anymore, but shut up.

I don't know why I wrote this either. 

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