Girls Aloud's Official Top 40 biggest songs ever revealed
November 2024 marks 20 years of Girls Aloud's pivotal second studio album What Will The Neighbours Say? - and the band have already begun teasing celebrations by releasing a fancy, upscaled version of The Show music video in 4K. Ooh.
The LP saw the group swerve the wrath of eager telly talent show naysayers to cement Cheryl Tweedy, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh as a proper pop force to be reckoned with. The self-proclaimed 'leaders of the pack,' as they'd later brand themselves.
What Will The Neighbours Say? also saw the true beginnings of Girls Aloud's symbiotic relationship with production juggernaut Xenomania, with whom they created the entire record and worked with almost exclusively throughout the remainder of their career. The team's brilliantly-unconventional approach to pop music is obvious across the LP's five Top 5 singles: Jump, The Show, Love Machine, I'll Stand By You and Wake Me Up.
Now, we reveal the group's Official Top 40 biggest songs of all time in the UK. From the opulence of The Promise to Something Kinda Oooh's guileless charm, we've crunched the numbers and fully-updated the girls' most popular tracks.
First, let's take a look at the Top 5.
MORE: See where every Girls Aloud song and album has charted in the UK
5. Jump
Released: 2003
Official Chart peak: 2
UK chart units: 460,000
The group's cover of The Pointer Sisters' 1984 track Jump (For My Love) proved a huge success for Girls Aloud, peaking at Number 2 in November 2003. Recorded for inclusion in staple Christmas movie Love Actually, Jump has been streamed a total of 22.2 million times in the UK so far.
4. Call The Shots
Released: 2007
Official Chart peak: 3
UK chart units: 475,000
The second single lifted from Girls Aloud's fourth studio album Tangled Up, the sublime Call The Shots comes in third on the list. To date, Call The Shots has been streamed over 16.2 million times in the UK, and is also the group's second most-downloaded song behind The Promise (currently on 297,000 UK downloads).
3. Love Machine
Released: 2004
Official Chart peak: 2
UK chart units: 605,000
Once wrongfully predicted by the group to be - in Nadine Coyle's own words - 'career suicide,' Love Machine is Girls Aloud's third biggest-seller to date. The second single lifted from their What Will The Neighbours Say? album boasts 42 million streams and 127,500 downloads in the UK.
2. The Promise
Released: 2008
Official Chart peak: 1
UK chart units: 783,000
Girls Aloud's fourth and final Number 1 single in the UK, The Promise lands in second place on the list. Having won the group a BRIT Award for Best British Single in 2009, the track is actually their most-downloaded ever (with 518,000 UK downloads and counting).
The Promise has also racked-up over 26.4 million UK streams to date.
1. Sound of the Underground
Released: 2002
Official Chart peak: 1
UK chart units: 1,065,000
With its iconic opening surf guitar, drum 'n' bass influence and ingenius 'Buy Girls, Bye Boys' marketing campaign, Sound of the Underground reigns as Girls Aloud's biggest single to date in the UK.
Having scored the girls their first UK Number 1 single (and a Christmas Number 1, at that) after a much-publicised chart battle against Popstars: The Rivals competition One True Voice, Sound of the Underground has gone on to shift over 1 million chart units to date.
The track's been streamed 42.8 million times in the UK - just shy of their most-streamed single Love Machine's total - and remains their biggest physical seller (562,000 copies).
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Reece Lovatt
WHY not include like u kuje by kimberly walsh and aggro santos? she made that song listenable and def sold well enough