About Girls Aloud
Girls Aloud are a British pop girl group that was created through the ITV talent show Popstars: The Rivals in 2002. The line up consisted of members Cheryl Tweedy, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. In 2012, the group was named as the United Kingdom's biggest selling girl group of the 21st century so far, with over 4.3 million singles sales and 4 million albums sold in the UK alone. During their two decades together, the group achieved a string of twenty top ten singles on the UK Singles Chart, including four number ones. They also achieved seven certified albums, two of which debut at number one. They have been nominated for five Brit Awards, winning the 2009 Best Single for "The Promise".
The group's main musical style is pop, but they had experimented with other sounds including electropop, dance-pop and dance-rock throughout their career. Girls Aloud's collaborations with Brian Higgins and his songwriting and production team Xenomania earned the group critical acclaim, because of an innovative approach to mainstream pop music. The group became one of the few UK reality television acts to achieve continued success, amassing a fortune of £30 million by May 2010. Guinness World Records listed them as the "Most Successful Reality TV Group" in the 2007 edition. They also hold the record for "Most Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a Female Group" in the 2008 edition, and are credited again for "Most Successful Reality TV Group" in the 2011 edition.
The group went on an indefinite hiatus in March 2013 following the conclusion of the Ten: The Hits Tour. Band member Sarah Harding died of breast cancer on 5 September 2021, at the age of 39. In May 2024, the remaining members are set to embark on an arena tour – The Girls Aloud Show. Consisting of thirty shows, it will be dedicated in memory of Harding and serve as a "celebration" of their music.
Girls Aloud was formed on 30 November 2002 in front of millions of viewers on ITV's Popstars: The Rivals. The concept of the programme, hosted by Big Brother presenter Davina McCall, was to produce a boyband and a girlgroup who would be "rivals" and compete for the 2002 Christmas number one single. Following the initial success of Hear'Say , several thousand applicants attended auditions across the United Kingdom in hope of being selected. Ten girls and ten boys were chosen as finalists by judges Pete Waterman, Louis Walsh and Spice Girls member Geri Halliwell. However, two of these were disqualified before the live shows began: Hazel Kaneswaran was found to be too old to participate, while Nicola Ward refused to sign the contract, claiming the pay the group would receive was too low. Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts were chosen as their replacements.
During October and November, the finalists took to the stage participating in weekly Saturday night live performances . Each week the contestant polling the fewest phone votes was eliminated until the final line-ups of the groups emerged. The five girls who made it into the group were Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh, and Sarah Harding; Javine Hylton missed out on a place in the group, despite previous expectations that she would be placed in the line-up. The group was named Girls Aloud and were managed by Louis Walsh until 2005 when Hilary Shaw replaced him.
The new group competed with the boys' winning group, One True Voice to have 2002's Christmas number one single. Girls Aloud won the battle with their single "Sound of the Underground", produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania. The song spent four consecutive weeks at number one and was certified platinum in March 2003. The song received critical acclaim; Alexis Petridis of The Guardian stated that "it proved a first: it was a reality pop record that didn't make you want to do physical harm to everyone involved in its manufacture".
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