Let me start by saying that I did not enjoy the last Saturdays album. “I can’t sing along to a single one of these songs,” I whined upon Wordshaker’s release in October 2009, “and isn’t that what bands like The Saturdays are for?” One lethal hook and I would have been on their side, but nothing about the rainbow-coloured starlets’ second album stopped me from dismissing it as dull, vacuous mulch…
In their quest to become the bolshy titans of female-fronted dance pop, The Saturdays have always lagged behind – the last record debuted at 36 in the Irish charts, plummeting to 91 in its second week – but in 2011, this is a much tougher battle than it was two years ago. Girls Aloud may be gone for good, but there’s still Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Jessie J, Ke$ha and countless more to contend with. Heck, even Britney got her groove back this year.
Miraculously, the first single from third album On Your Radar is potent enough to propel The Saturdays back into the running. Amid a storm of synths and high-wired techno beats, Rochelle Wiseman purrs, “Closer, baby, look in my eyes/ Do you recognise me?” Frankly, no, I don’t, Rochelle. I’m used to writing you and your multicolored cohorts off as the musical equivalent of those Boots ads where a tirading squadron of deranged women charge aimlessly down the high street.
Chanelling The Pussycat Dolls at their catchiest, ‘Notorious’ is smart, edgy and bubbling over with on-trend pop gimmicks. “I’ve been a bad girl, I’m a bad girl,” they honk in glorious, distorted unison and for once, they’ve done very, very good.
And the good news keeps coming. ‘Get Ready, Get Set’ boasts an insatiable chorus, ‘Faster’ revamps Madonna’s better club-hopping moments, and ‘All Fired Up’ could be a charged-up remix of Katy Perry’s ‘California Gurls’ (the band have called it the… ahem, “dancingest” song they’ve ever recorded).
With this album, the plucky fivesome have mostly kept out of ballad territory, which, judging by previous efforts, is the best move they could possibly make (why resort to sappy serenades when Vanessa White’s astonishing vocals are able to break so triumphantly through the blips?) ‘My Heart Takes Over’ starts tamely enough, but soon builds to an empowering refrain, while slowie ‘Last Call’ is bearable, but nowhere near as satisfying. The other down-tempo number ‘Wish I Didn’t Know’ is the worst track here, with ‘80s-sounding rocktrocity ‘The Way You Watch Me’ featuring lone guest star Travie McCoy clocking in at reverse number two.
Thanks to chart goldmine Steve Mac, Girls Aloud favorites Xenomania and a handful of other clever songwriters, On Your Radar is blessed with enough quirky, floor-filling stompers to hoist The Saturdays out of the dark ages of pop (ie. 2002) and shove them right to the forefront of lippy disco pop. If they jettison the ballads on album number four, they might just make it to the cutting edge.