| Tangled Up | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Girls Aloud | ||||
| Released | 19 November 2007 (UK) | |||
| Recorded | 2007 | |||
| Genre | Pop, dance-pop, electropop, power pop | |||
| Length | 47:26 | |||
| Label | Fascination | |||
| Producer | Brian Higgins, Xenomania | |||
| Girls Aloud chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Tangled Up | ||||
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Not to be confused with the Video Brinquedo animated film.
Tangled Up is the fourth studio album (fifth overall) by the British all-female pop group Girls Aloud. It was released in the United Kingdom on 19 November 2007 (see 2007 in music) by Fascination Records. Like their previous albums, Tangled Up was crafted by the production team of Brian Higgins and Xenomania. Tangled Up explores a more electronic aspect of pop music.
Tangled Up was mostly praised by contemporary music critics upon its release. The album spawned three top ten singles, including the highly successful "Call the Shots", and received a platinum and gold certification in the United Kingdom and Ireland respectively. The release was followed by 2008's Tangled Up Tour, Girls Aloud's fourth concert tour. The album has sold 490,000 copies.
Contents |
The album took around six months to record, partially due to the release of "Sexy! No No No..." falling in the middle of recording.[1] Nadine Coyle recorded her vocals from Los Angeles.[2] The process began with each member talking to producer Brian Higgins about their lives, and he "takes inspiration from all that."[1] Coyle said that with this album "The songs are all in the same vein, whereas the others have been quite random."[3] In an interview for the Fascination Records website, Cheryl Cole said the album was "heading in a more mature direction."[4]
The album title, Tangled Up, came from the song "Close to Love", the second song featured on the album.
Tangled Up features a dancier, more electronic approach to pop music, in comparison to Girls Aloud's previous albums. The dance-pop sound was inspired by the success of their 2006 single "Something Kinda Ooooh". "Call the Shots", "Close to Love", and "Girl Overboard" are all electropop numbers reminiscent of 1980s music. The song "What You Crying For" is influenced by drum and bass, a type of electronic dance music.[5] However, "Control of the Knife" is more inspired by reggae and ska,[6] while "Can't Speak French" employs "jazzy guitar changes" and "Black Jacks" recall "sixties psychedelica".[7][8]
Girls Aloud co-wrote two of the twelve tracks on Tangled Up, of which are "Sexy! No No No..." and "Crocodile Tears". They also co-wrote and recorded a song titled "Hoxton Heroes", which pokes fun at indie bands. The song was deemed too controversial for Tangled Up and therefore omitted from the album;[2] however, the song was released as a B-Side to "Can't Speak French".[9] Cheryl Cole said of their contributions, "We never got into this industry to be brilliant lyricists but recently we've felt more comfortable with writing bits and pieces."[1]
Cheryl Cole said that "Call the Shots" is her favourite from the new album, and that it "gives me goosebumps".[10] It was called "an elegant electro-pop ballad delivered with a restraint and maturity to rival groups of twice their age" and "classy electronic Euro-pop with real edge".[7][11] Digital Spy also praised the song, calling it "more tasteful than some of the more lurid [...] previous hits".[12] BBC Music said that "Close to Love" "kicks off the energetic side of Tangled Up with a monster beat."[6] "Sexy! No No No...", described as a "pounding electro-punk number with an extended, vocodered intro",[11] was called both "one of the most daring songs they've yet released" and "easily the weakest track."[7][11] The Guardian felt that "someone carelessly forgot to pack a tune amid the fuzzy guitars and synthesizers, distorted vocals and Sympathy for the Devil-esque whoops."[13] The song contains a sample of Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog".
"Girl Overboard", which is "a tribute to Eighties electro-pop",[14] is "a slightly ridiculous rave knees up with a vodka rush of a chorus".[8] "Can't Speak French" was referred to as a "swirling, slower cut with great jazzy guitar changes".[7] The Guardian called the song "a prime example of Xenomania's ability to throw wildly disparate musical elements together."[15] According to allmusic, the song "achieves the kind of effortlessly sultry cool which the Sugababes have spent a career striving for."[11] It was also described, however, as "a bad joke or a stroke of genius" and the song's chorus was called "pure idiocy."[16] "Black Jack", a "cocktail of glorious Northern soul-inspired chorus and belligerent terrace chant",[13] recalls "sixties psychedelia".[8]
"Control of the Knife" was described as "reggae infused [...] with an absurd mash of trumpets and synths".[6] "Fling", track eight on the album, "boasts a manic shoutalong chorus" and "offers a kind of nuclear-powered punk-funk".[11][13] "What You Crying For" is a "forward-thinking drum and bass track".[5] "I'm Falling" was called "futuristic" and "a thrilling mixture of Prodigy-style beats and intergalactic synths".[6][8] "Damn" was given poor reviews by the Daily Star, who said it compared it to "an out-take from their last album."[7] The album's closer, "Crocodile Tears", was called "entrancing".[11]
Tangled Up was released in Ireland on 16 November 2007 and in the United Kingdom on the following Monday. In addition to the album, an extra limited edition remix album was released. The bonus disc, entitled Mixed Up, was available to purchase only from Woolworths, and was available at a discounted price when bought together with Tangled Up. Jewels & Stone are responsible for the album.[17][18] Whilst the CD inlay lists it as an eight track CD, it is actually a one track CD of a 38 minute megamix of the tracks listed. A fan edition of Tangled Up was also available through Girls Aloud's official website; it is the only version of the album to contain a picture of Girls Aloud on the cover, along with song lyrics and signed postcards.[19]
The first single from Tangled Up, "Sexy! No No No...", was released 3 September 2007. It became their sixteenth consecutive top ten hit in the UK. Sarah Harding described the song as "edgy", and a major advance in Girls Aloud's sound.[20] "Sexy! No No No..." was followed by the second single, "Call the Shots", released a week after the album on 26 November 2007. The song debuted at number nine due to strong download sales and peaked at number three, spending a total of fifteen weeks in the top forty.[21] The third single was confirmed on 15 January 2008 as "Can't Speak French".[22] "Can't Speak French" debuted at number forty-nine on the UK Singles Chart on 24 February 2008, four weeks before the single's physical release.[23] After the physical release the song peaked at number nine.[24] In Japan, "Sexy! No No No..." went top 20(#14); their highest charting single in Japan, but "Call the Shots" charted at #68 causing "Can't Speak French"'s release to be cancelled in June 2008.
"Bored Stupid" a track recorded during the album sessions was supposed to be added to album but was removed from the final track lisitng and is currently unreleased. It is currently unknown whether or not the track will be released in the future. [22]
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [11] |
| BBC Music | (positive)[6] |
| Digital Spy | [8] |
| The Guardian | [13] |
| The List | [25] |
| musicOMH | [26] |
| NME | (7/10)[27] |
| The Sun | [28] |
| The Times | [14] |
| Virgin Media | [5] |
The reviews for Tangled Up have been very positive. BBC Music labelled it "yet another unrelenting pop masterpiece", also praising Girls Aloud for making "challenging pop music without ever losing their sense of fun" and calling them "undoubtedly the best girl band the UK has ever seen".[6] Allmusic called it "a short, sharp and tight collection of some of the most exciting music in a particularly exciting career" and complimented it for being "a perfectly constructed whole without becoming a tedious homogeny".[11] Virgin Media described it as "ballsy pop with moments of eclecticism which [...] results in hair-curlingly exciting music" and stated that "the girls excel themselves".[5] The List praised the album's "witty lyrics, insanely infectious melodies and soaring choruses that explode out of nowhere", as well as its "groundbreaking production from genius collective Xenomania" and called Tangled Up "a standout example of some of the best British songwriting in years".[25] musicOMH described the album as "47 minutes of pumping, slightly demented electro-pop, with more hooks than a fisherman's basket and not a maudlin ballad or an ill-advised cover version in sight" and concluded by saying that "if you love pop music that's original, inventive and sometimes exhilarating, you need this album."[26]
The Guardian called Tangled Up "witty, diverse, experimental and viscerally thrilling" and "by any standards [..] pretty irresistible".[13] Digital Spy found it "fun, frivolous, catchy, sexy and innovative" and noticed that it is the band's "most danceable album to date".[8] The Sun said Girls Aloud are "still at the top of their game" and felt that the album has "a more ballsy sound".[28] NME said the album "will continue the trend" and highlighted the songs "Fling" and "Can't Speak French" as "unbeatable future pop hits".[27]
However, there was some criticism for the album. The Times said that it is "as predictable as a motorway, but fun".[29] Yahoo! Music praised songs such as "Black Jacks" and "Control of the Knife". However, the reviewer believed that the rest were "neither great nor grisly - simply so-so".[30]
| Standard Edition: Fascination / 1750580 (UK) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "Call the Shots" | Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins, Jason Tim Powell, Giselle Sommerville, Lisa Cowling | 3:45 | ||||||
| 2. | "Close to Love" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Cowling, Nick Coler, Jody Lei | 3:53 | ||||||
| 3. | "Sexy! No No No..." | Girls Aloud, Xenomania, Nazareth | 3:18 | ||||||
| 4. | "Girl Overboard" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Lei | 4:11 | ||||||
| 5. | "Can't Speak French" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Lei, Carla Marie Williams | 4:04 | ||||||
| 6. | "Black Jacks" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Cowling | 4:20 | ||||||
| 7. | "Control of the Knife" | Cooper, Higgins, Sommerville, Jon Shave | 3:51 | ||||||
| 8. | "Fling" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Williams, Moguai | 4:13 | ||||||
| 9. | "What You Crying For" | Cooper, Higgins, Cowling, Tim "Rolf" Larcombe, Myra Boyle | 3:44 | ||||||
| 10. | "I'm Falling" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Yusra Maru'e, Niara Scarlett | 4:01 | ||||||
| 11. | "Damn" | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Cowling | 3:46 | ||||||
| 12. | "Crocodile Tears" | Girls Aloud, Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Sommerville, Larcombe | 4:18 | ||||||
| Mixed Up: Fascination / 1753391 (UK) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length | ||||||
| 1. | "The Show" (Tony Lamezma Club Mix) | Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins, Tim Powell, Lisa Cowling, Jon Shave, Xenomania | 3:43 | ||||||
| 2. | "No Good Advice" (Doublefunk Clean Vocal Mix) | Cooper, Higgins, Cowling, Nick Coler, Lene Nystrøm, Xenomania | 5:19 | ||||||
| 3. | "I Think We're Alone Now" (Tony Lamezma Baubletastic Remix) | Ritchie Cordell, Tommy James | 5:10 | ||||||
| 4. | "Sexy! No No No..." (Tony Lamezma's "Yes Yes Yes" Mix) | Girls Aloud, Xenomania, Nazareth | 5:53 | ||||||
| 5. | "Something Kinda Ooooh" (Tony Lamezma Remix) | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Coler, Jody Lei, Giselle Sommerville | 4:40 | ||||||
| 6. | "Wake Me Up" (Tony Lamezma's Love Affair) | Cooper, Higgins, Powell, Cowling, Shawn Lee, Paul Woods, Yusra Maru'e | 5:09 | ||||||
| 7. | "Jump" (Almighty Vocal Mix) | Steve Mitchell, Marti Sharron, Gary Skardina | 4:09 | ||||||
| 8. | "Biology" (Tony Lamezma Remix) | Cooper, Higgins, Cowling, Sommerville | 4:23 | ||||||
Tangled Up debuted in the UK Albums Chart at number four. The album fell steadily, before rising back into the top thirty with the release of "Can't Speak French" and later the top twenty at 12.[31] On 25 January 2008, Tangled Up was certified Platinum.[32] In the Irish Albums Chart, it debuted at number twenty-five. Since the release of "Can't Speak French" and the beginning of the tour, the album climbed back into the top 40 and re-entered the charts at number 12. It remained in the Top 40 until mid-June.
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
Certification |
|---|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart | 4 | Platinum[32] |
| Irish Albums Chart | 25 | Gold[33] |
| UK Year-End Album Chart (2007) | 68 |
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