| "Sexy! No No No…" | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Girls Aloud | ||||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Tangled Up | ||||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "Dog Without a Bone" | |||||||||||||||||||
| Released | August 31, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format | CD single Digital download |
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| Recorded | London, England | |||||||||||||||||||
| Genre | Electropop, electro rock | |||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 3:16 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Label | Fascination Records | |||||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Girls Aloud, Nazareth, Xenomania | |||||||||||||||||||
| Producer | Xenomania | |||||||||||||||||||
| Girls Aloud singles chronology | ||||||||||||||||||||
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"Sexy! No No No…" is a song by the British all-female pop group Girls Aloud, taken from their fourth studio album Tangled Up (2007). The song was written by Girls Aloud, Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins and his production team Xenomania, and produced by Higgins and Xenomania. The song samples Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog", for which they have received a writing credit. Composed of three songs welded together, the "pounding electro-punk number" avoids the verse-chorus form present in most contemporary pop music. "Sexy! No No No..." was released as a single in September 2007. The song charted at number five on the UK Singles Chart, continuing Girls Aloud's streak of top ten hits.
The music video witnesses Girls Aloud dance through pins and wires in black latex catsuits and billowing red dresses, providing a more artistic, "edgier" approach for the group. "Sexy! No No No..." was promoted through numerous live appearances and has since been performed on all of Girls Aloud's subsequent concert tours. The song, described as "ambitious", received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics.
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"Sexy! No No No…" was co-written by the members of Girls Aloud in collaboration with Brian Higgins, Miranda Cooper, Niara Scarlett, Nick Coler and Tim Powell of Xenomania. Similar to previous Girls Aloud singles, "Sexy! No No No..." is also produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania. The song was recorded in 2007 at Eden Studios in London England. It was mixed by Jeremy Wheatley and mastered by Dick Beetham.
The song was described as having a "catchy" chorus, vocodered vocals, "pounding" guitar riffs and "atmospheric" synths. "Sexy! No No No" consists of three songs welded together: one with a samba rhythm, one with a sped-up sample and a breakbeat, and an intro from elsewhere.[1] The guitar riff is sampled from Scottish rock band Nazareth's 1975 track "Hair of the Dog."[2] "Sexy! No No No…" shares similarities to the "new rave" genre popularised by NME in 2006 and 2007. The song's vocodered introduction is sung by Cheryl Cole over a choir and a minimal piano section. The song then segues into a loud, chaotic backing track. "Sexy! No No No…" strays from the general verse-chorus form of pop songs. It is made up of only one verse, bridge, repeated chorus, and a middle 8 which is sung over the chorus, before concluding with a repetition of the verse until the end.
Sarah Harding has described "Sexy! No No No…" on the official Girls Aloud website as "edgy" and a major advance in Girls Aloud's sound.
Despite rumours in April 2007 that Girls Aloud were to split in September that year, the group announced they were in the process of recording their sixteenth single and fourth studio album following their tour, The Sound of Girls Aloud: The Greatest Hits Tour.[3][4] In July 2007, "Sexy! No No No..." was announced as the first single from Tangled Up, Girls Aloud's follow-up to the greatest hits collection The Sound of Girls Aloud (2006). A high quality radio rip of "Sexy! No No No..." then leaked onto the internet in the early hours of the morning on 20 July 2007.[5] It officially premiered on BBC Radio 1's The Chris Moyles Show the same morning.[6] The official radio edit of the song leaked onto the Internet the day of the radio premiere.[5] In August 2007, "Sexy! No No No..." became Girls Aloud's sixth single to be A-listed on the BBC Radio 1 playlist.[7]
On 3 August 2007, the cover art, release date and single track listings for "Sexy! No No No..." were revealed on the group's official website.[8] The single was released as a digital download on 31 August 2007 and on physical formats on 3 September 2007. It was available on two CD single formats. The first disc included a live version of "Something Kinda Ooooh", recorded at the Bournemouth International Centre.[9] The second CD format featured a new track entitled "Dog Without a Bone" and Tony Lamezma's "Yes Yes Yes" Mix of "Sexy! No No No...".[10] These songs were also available as part of a digital download.[11] The Xenomania Club Mix was also released as a digital exclusive.
In addition to acting as the lead single of Tangled Up, "Sexy! No No No..." was included in the promotional campaign for the Samsung SGH-F210 mobile phone as part of a deal Samsung sealed with Girls Aloud in June 2007.[12]
The single release was accompanied by a previously unrelease b-side entitled "Dog Without a Bone". The song was originally written in 2006 recording sessions in an attempt to come up with a lead single to sell Girls Aloud's greatest hits compilation The Sound of Girls Aloud.[13] "Dog Without a Bone" has been described as a mixture between Jamelia's "Beware of the Dog" and a glam rock-styled version of Goldfrapp's "Train".[14] On 16 August 2007, a 29 second clip of "Dog Without A Bone" leaked onto the Internet.[14] Online music publication Popjustice named it as their 'Song of the Day' four days later.[14] The website later featured another 30 second sample, this time containing the chorus of the song.[14] On 31 August, the full version of "Dog Without a Bone" was leaked three days before the release of the single on 3 September 2007.[14]
"Sexy! No No No..." received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics. Girls Aloud were complimented for restyling themselves and for their willingness to experiment with a new direction in the song. John Lucas of Allmusic described the "pounding electro-punk number" as "one of the most daring songs they've yet released."[15] CBBC Newsround said that "Sexy! No No No..." is "yet another sample of their [Girls Aloud's] perfect pop: bold, sassy, slightly loopy and unbelievably catchy", stating the song has "a knack of being hard-wired into your head from the first time you hear [it]".[16] The song was said to "sound like perfect pop to dance around your bedroom to" by John Murphy of musicOMH, who went on to say: "After a stunningly weird chorus - all atmospheric synths, vocoder vocals, and a strange sense of doom, it just explodes into a big burst of electro-pop that sounds like it's been beamed down from another planet".[17] Murphy went on to praise Xenomania's willingness to experiment, pointing out that the song "isn't even structured like a proper pop song - there's no verse-chorus-verse".[17] The single received further praise by Nick Levine from Digital Spy who called it a "noisy riot of multi-layered guitar riffs, whipcrackin' call-and-response vocals and euphoria 'woo woo-oo' harmonies.[18] Levine, like Murphy of musicOMH, also complimented Xenomania's work on the song: sacrificing "conventional song structure in the name of keeping [...] hooks coming thick and fast - and quite right too."[18] He also praised Girls Aloud for restyling themselves "as teasing minxes, claiming that they've 'dropped their d-d-dirty style'".[18]
Lauren Murphy of Entertainment.ie said that "Sexy! No No No..." was a "stellar single", describing it as an "'80s-flavoured radio hit".[19] The vocal interplay of "Sexy! No No No..." was described as "mesmerising" by John Aizlewood from the Evening Standard.[20] Matt O'Leary of Virgin Media positively reviewed the single saying it "slam[s] home the power-pop message we're used to [from Girls Aloud]."[21] Sharon O'Connell of Yahoo! Music called the "hyperactive, hi-NRG lead single" one of the "most notable" tracks on Tangled Up,[22] while the Liverpool Daily Post said that the song "see girls up and down the country dancing around their handbags".[23]
Because "Sexy! No No No..." was available to download starting the Friday ahead of its physical release, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 64 based on legal download sales.[24] The following week, it rose 59 places to peak at number five.[25] This made the song Girls Aloud's sixteenth consecutive top ten single, a record for a female group.[26] The track slipped two places from number five to number seven in its third week on the chart and spent five more weeks in the top 75.[24] The song briefly reentered the top 75 for two weeks in November, following the release of Tangled Up.[24] Overall, the single spent ten weeks in the top 75 and three more in the top 100.[24][27]
In Ireland, the song peaked at number eleven.[28] It spent two more weeks in the top twenty of the Irish Singles Chart, at numbers twelve and thirteen respectively.[29][30]
Nadine Coyle appeared on the RTÉ One show "Saturday Night With Miriam" on 14 July 2007, saying that Girls Aloud would film the video the week beginning 16 July.[31] Backstage at T4 on the Beach, Kimberley Walsh said that the video would be more artistic and edgier. On 7 August 2007, British tabloids released pictures of Girls Aloud dressed in tight black latex catsuits while standing in front of a green screen, like the left image, suggesting that special effects would be used in the video.[32] The music video, which premiered on satellite and cable music channels on August 10, was directed by Trudy Bellinger ("The Show", "I'll Stand by You").[33]
At the start, the girls are wearing their PVC catsuits, standing in front of red material, with flowers being shown and a seamstress starting work on a dress. Cheryl Cole then sings her opening lines. When the chorus begins, the camera zooms out to show the girls wearing giant inflatable red dresses. The seamstress starts putting large pins into her dress, poking their way around the girls, until the pins start tearing into their dresses. The pins tear the dresses off, and the girls are back in their catsuits, surrounded by the threads of their dresses.
The video won the Virgin Media Award for 'Best Video'.
Girls Aloud gave their first TV performance of the song on T4 on the Beach on Channel 4 on 22 July 2007. They promoted the single by performing on a number of television programmes, such as Dance X, GMTV (twice), The National Lottery, This Morning, and the ITV1 special Saturday Night Divas.[34] The group have performed the song at various live events, such as G-A-Y and 2008's V Festival, as well as the group's summer open-air concerts.
"Sexy! No No No..." served as the opening for 2008's Tangled Up Tour. Girls Aloud were suspended on wires as they hovered in the air in black cloaks, suggesting a superheroin motif.[35][36] They slowly descended onto the stage, filled with dry ice, as an extended instrumental introduction to the song played.[37] A video screen showed Cheryl singing the vocodered introduction. As the intro ends and the song picks up energy, the stage was lit up and Girls Aloud removed their cloaks to reveal stage outfits designed by Julien Macdonald.[38] The performance was accompanied by a high-energy dance routine. For 2009's Out of Control Tour, the group performed the song on a smaller stage in the middle of the venues. The song was mixed with the backing track of Rihanna's "Disturbia". "Sexy! No No No..." was also performed at Wembley Stadium when Girls Aloud opened for Coldplay.
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Year-end charts
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| Region | Date | Format |
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| United Kingdom | 31 August 2007[41] | Digital Download |
| 3 September 2007[42] | CD Single |
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