'Untouchable', Girls Aloud's 21st single, has become the first of their career to miss out on a spot in the Top 10. It has already been advertisied in both the programmes for their current 'Out Of Control' arena tour and in the advertising for their limited edition singles boxset that 'Untouchable' would be their 21st Top 10 hit. This, I think, is part one of the problem 'Untouchable' had.
Fascination, Girls Aloud's record label, seemed convinced that 'Untouchable' would go Top 10 no matter what. Whether they believed that it would scrape its way in based on the girls loyal fan base who wouldn't want to see the Top 10 run broken, or simply because it's a great song (and really, it is), is unclear but the problem is that they became complacent. They assumed it would go Top 10 no matter what, so no promotion was done for it. Besides one performance of the song on Dancing On Ice more than a month before it was released there have been no TV performances of the song to help it make its way in to the public consciousness. Had I not been a huge Girls Aloud fan, as well as a user of the Popjustice forums, I wouldn't have even known 'Untouchable' was out last week. Fascination needed to realise that even when dealing with a group as huge as Girls Aloud, there's no point in expecting a single to go Top 10 when no one even knows it's been released.
Part two of the problem was the song itself. 'Untouchable' is an incredible song, there's no doubting that, but to release it as the follow up single to 'The Loving Kind' was a big mistake, in my opinion. The tone of these two songs is too similar; they're both kind-of-ballads-but-kind-of-not, fairly melancholic and quite frankly, too grown up. They don't have the same sense of fun as previous singles such as 'Love Machine' and 'Long Hot Summer', and whilst that would have been fine for one single it was foolish to release this kind of single twice in a row. If you ask me 'Love Is The Key' would have been the perfect third single from 'Out Of Control'.
I'm sure this will be written off as just a blip, and when they return after their break next year their come-back single will undoubtedly be billed as the '21st Top 10 single', just not the 21st consecutive one, and 'Untouchable' will be all but forgotten. This is a huge shame though. 'Untouchable' didn't deserve this, and had it never been released as a single it could have remained an epic fan favourite as it appears on the album.
Fascination, Girls Aloud's record label, seemed convinced that 'Untouchable' would go Top 10 no matter what. Whether they believed that it would scrape its way in based on the girls loyal fan base who wouldn't want to see the Top 10 run broken, or simply because it's a great song (and really, it is), is unclear but the problem is that they became complacent. They assumed it would go Top 10 no matter what, so no promotion was done for it. Besides one performance of the song on Dancing On Ice more than a month before it was released there have been no TV performances of the song to help it make its way in to the public consciousness. Had I not been a huge Girls Aloud fan, as well as a user of the Popjustice forums, I wouldn't have even known 'Untouchable' was out last week. Fascination needed to realise that even when dealing with a group as huge as Girls Aloud, there's no point in expecting a single to go Top 10 when no one even knows it's been released.
Part two of the problem was the song itself. 'Untouchable' is an incredible song, there's no doubting that, but to release it as the follow up single to 'The Loving Kind' was a big mistake, in my opinion. The tone of these two songs is too similar; they're both kind-of-ballads-but-kind-of-not, fairly melancholic and quite frankly, too grown up. They don't have the same sense of fun as previous singles such as 'Love Machine' and 'Long Hot Summer', and whilst that would have been fine for one single it was foolish to release this kind of single twice in a row. If you ask me 'Love Is The Key' would have been the perfect third single from 'Out Of Control'.
I'm sure this will be written off as just a blip, and when they return after their break next year their come-back single will undoubtedly be billed as the '21st Top 10 single', just not the 21st consecutive one, and 'Untouchable' will be all but forgotten. This is a huge shame though. 'Untouchable' didn't deserve this, and had it never been released as a single it could have remained an epic fan favourite as it appears on the album.
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