Thinking Aloud

The odd thing about celebrities is that, despite all the facts to the contrary, we feel we know them. Those who have risen to the lofty heights through the bizarre new medium of reality television doubly so. Nadine Coyle, having been through the whole process twice, almost feels, if not like a member of the family, then certainly like the girl next door who made good. We’ve followed her progress from her initial days on RTE’s Popstars to her very public departure from Six (which we can safely assume is not keeping her awake at night) and her reappearance in the British revival of the format, culminating in the – thus far – all conquering Girls Aloud.

In conversation, Coyle is bright, breezy and certainly likeable. It’s quite hard to equate her with the sultry teenage temptress who has dominated the tabloids in recent times, especially after the band’s recent Irish appearances – when the coverage was less concerned with their music than the length of their skirts. Does she see this as a means to an end or simply a fact of life for women in popular music these days?
“It’s probably that,” she replies. “People are interested in the whole celebrity thing, I am myself. I always pick up the magazines – I know they print a lot of crap but it doesn’t stop me reading them. I always want to know what Jennifer Lopez is doing, or Britney Spears. We think we’re boring but if people are interested that’s good.”
Of course, Nadine herself has had a fair degree of experience of living in the public eye. “It’s been a year now since we met as Girls Aloud and it was a year before that that I was doing Irish Popstars, so it’s been two years that I’ve had to deal with it. It has gone really mad in the past eight months but it’s enjoyable. I don’t really think about it too much. Everyone’s been really supportive.”
Well perhaps not quite everyone. Many see Girls Aloud and their ilk as sounding the death knell for pop music simply because they have dared take a different route, a route that to Nadine is totally natural.
“There’s so many acts already out there that people don’t just get signed from busking in the street,” she observes. “People who have talent and are really interested are only getting noticed now from going to auditions. That’s the only chance they have to get close to someone from a record company or a manager.
“To be honest, we’ve been really lucky and not had any of that. People don’t refer back to that, we don’t get asked about it in interviews anymore. We’re never asked about the programme, we’re never asked about where we come from, they just concentrate on us now as a band.”
And, as a band, they make a nice enough noise, from the exuberant ‘No Good Advice’ to the rather swish new single ‘Life Got Cold’. (One does suspect, however, that Julie Burchill calling their album the most important example of British popular culture since Never Mind The Bollocks may have been due more to her own agenda of self promotion).
So for the moment the hits keep coming and the papers keep printing the photos, but does Nadine see this as something long term?
“I don’t know, I really do not know,” she admits. “I don’t think about it. It might last a year, it might last six months, it might last five years. You just don’t know. We enjoy every single day of what we’re doing and if it only lasts for another month more then I’ll say that I’ve enjoyed every single thing. It’s been the best experience that I could have ever have. I’ve just loved it”.

Sound Of The Underground is out now on Universal.