We haven't even heard the song yet, but some quick snooping on The Saturdays Facebook page has revealed this cover artwork for new single 30 Days!
What do we reckon? Speaking style-wise, it's very much in keeping with the On Your Radar look, so could this mean the single is fronting up a re-release of the album? One thing we know for sure, Una flipping her hair sure gets us overwhelmed. We like Vanessa's finger-gesture too, very Saturday(s) Night Fever.
Anyways, the song is getting its premiere on Radio 1 at 7.55am tomorrow morning - so make sure you listen in then.
The sign of a good girl-band – and here we’re talking the ones that truly endure to place an indelible stamp on a decade of pop history – is how well they make that carefully balanced transition to ‘maturity’. Even the word itself is troublesome, because when we say ‘maturity’, we don’t mean mums dressed up all-sexy and riffing on the success of past glories (Spice Girls re-union anyone?). No, what we mean is that vital crux when the band crystallises within the public consciousness and take that step up to the next level, that degree of success where phrases like ‘national treasure’ and ‘pop greats’ can be employed with heft of not only long-standing enthusiasts, but with the voice of a nation whole.
Girls Aloud did it. Tangled Up (their fourth studio effort), via the cool, glacial beauty of Call The Shots, took them to the kind of band that could sell out arenas at the drop of a hat. Every member was a fully fledged celebrity (and woman) in their own right and with this album, that individualism was allowed to shine through in a way only glimpsed at before. It was a pop album that breathed richness and complexity in a way they only bettered in follow-up Out of Control.
And now the Saturdays stand at this point too – if we’re going by full studio albums (so Chasing Lights, Wordshaker and On Your Radar), they’re due their Tangled Up moment with their next release. And about time too. On Your Radar went by criminally underrated, charting poorly and receiving lukewarm reviews. Within a month of its release, it seemed to be already forgotten, in much the same way Wordshaker had before it. What was going wrong? What was stopping the Saturdays from becoming a band that could not only charm the airwaves with pop gems, but really make a stand in the album charts and linger around for weeks on end like your Adele types.
What did the reviewers (and perhaps more importantly, the public) want from On Your Radar? Maybe they wanted more depth, more meaning. But while On Your Radar might not be no 21, replete with love-lorn intensity and backstory, I’d argue it has meaning aplenty within it. As a pop album, it stands as brilliantly post-modern – an effort so sleekly synthesized that it almost becomes a girlband LP about being in a girlband. It posits the five Saturday girls as characters within their own contemporary drama, a world of celebrity get-ups, drink and glamour. It’s exciting, intoxicating; a world where the pace never dies and the every night holds its possibilities.
And this is the message the album sells to its fans. From the sexual politics and dancefloor allure of Get Ready Get Set and Move On U, the album propels itself forth on a hyper-drive of future-synths and breathy appeal. The album tells its listener: ‘this is the high life. We’re showing you what it’s like, now do you want a piece of it too?’. With a rub of well-oiled palms it invites you in throw the open door to a boutique paradise of hedonism, a sort of Great Gatsby for the pop age.
We hear the delectable Una Healy is working with Nerina Pallot on material for the next Saturdays LP – and for those in the pop-know, this is basically knee-tremblingly good stuff. Add in the fact there’ll be more Xenomania tracks (All Fired Up is for my money one of the best singles The Sats have ever released), and there really is the suggestion that the next Sats album could very well be ‘their’ Tangled Up. The girls still don’t have that long aspired-for No. 1 – maybe this time, that dream will finally become a reality. God knows, they deserve it.
As the day-by-day gradual unlocking of the new The Saturdays album trundles along, we've fallen head over heels in love with a couple of the tracks on there.
Both follow in the tradition in the full-on dance fest that was Notorious and All Fired Up, tapping into the hi-powered Eurodance that's suddenly so popular all of a sudden.
First up - the fast-paced, feisty Get Ready, Get Set. Una veers close to quasi-rapping while Mollie coos 'You and me don't need an icebreaker, you and me just need a long night'.
Oh, and then there's the chorus: 'I can do it with my hands tied behind my back' - Is this a not-so-subtle reference to bondage? Ooerr indeed!
Album closer Move On U is possibly even better, bouncing on a funky synth-bassline that bursts into a trancey, acid-driven chorus. There's some nice chanty bits, perfect for shouting out in a club, shots in both hands.
Remember Wiley's Wearing My Rolex? Even now, those first few bars of toe-trembling grimey synth-hook are enough to catapult us back to memories of messy shot-filled Uni nights out.
This is basically what the opening to The Saturdays' new track Faster sounds like. Paired with airy, disembodied vocals, it makes a fitting partner for Notorious, which it follows on the On Your Radar track line-up.
It's somewhat of a deceptive start though, it's not long before the song is soaring up into a trance-athon chorus of epic proportions.
Where All Fired Up begun, Faster follows; a pristine, futuristic vision of the new dance-orientated Saturdays. It's an exciting move for the girls and is bound to translate superbly to the stage come their Winter tour.
How's this for a striking album cover! The Saturdays pop on a bit of bright pink lippy and strip off for the cover art of new album On Your Radar.
Before you guys get all excited though, you just see their heads and shoulders. It makes for an eye-catching image, and one that I'm sure will stand out on the shelves amidst the deluge of a crowded Christmas market.
It fits in nicely with the interlinked arms and 'we're all the same' white dresses of the My Heart Takes Over cover too. Read what you want into any notions of how this might be an ironic bite back at those who dismiss pop music as coming straight off a conveyor belt.
There's a lot in a name. And for the moment, that's all we're going to have to go on when it comes to the new Saturdays album. But if the other tracks are any bit as good as Notorious, All Fired Up and My Heart Takes Over, we reckon this'll be a prime contender for pop album of the year.
HMV are offering five different exclusive slipcase-packaged versions of the album - one for each Saturday girl. The only question now is, which one do we choose?! (we might just have to get all of them).
Here's the full tracklisting for On Your Radar:
1. All Fired Up
2. Notorious
3. Faster
4. My Heart Takes Over
5. White Lies
6. For Myself
7. The Way You Watch Me
8. Do What You Want With Me
9. Promise Me
10. Wish I Didn't Know
11. Get Ready, Get Set
12. Last Call
13. I Say Ok
8.15 yesterday morning saw the lovely Mollie King taking to Radio 1 to premiere the eagerly awaited new Saturdays single. An early start, but totally worth it - My Heart Takes Over is a gorgeous, wintery mid-tempo ballad.
It's the kind of single that a lot of fans felt the band needed, the kind of track that could land them that all important X Factor performance slot, and maybe, just possibly, that Number One that they've been aiming at for so long. They certainly deserve one after all the work they've put in over the past few years.
The track taps into that kind of Bruno Mars, beat centric vein of balladry, adding in an epic chorus and my personal favourite bit of the song: Rochelle's vocodered middle-eight part which seems to positively float on the swooshing backing synths. Properly gorgeous.
What's more, we now know that The Saturdays new album will be called On Your Radar, after Una's brilliant outro lines in previous single All Fired Up. We know we'll certainly be keeping the Sats girls on our radar. The album sounds like it will be bursting with top pop tunes; there's a collab with Travie McCoy and producers include Space Cowboy, Steve Mac, Brian Higgins and David Eriksen.
My Heart Takes Over is released on the 13th November, with On Your Radar following the next week on the 21st November.
