As I said above, there are sometimes a whole month that gives us great pop music, and I shall retrospecticus those particular months next week. This time last year, quality electropop fans were indeed being spoiled. Rachel Stevens had released the brilliant Come and Get It, while Girls Aloud were busy with their best album to date, Chemistry. Taking their brilliance one step further, the Girls put out a limited edition of the Chemistry set with a free Christmas disc (that popjustice wittily renamed Christmastry) complete with Desperate Housewives inspired festive cover. If I had been blogging this time last year, no doubt I would have been most effusive in my praise for the 8 track collection. Time has mellowed my enthusiasm somewhat, but the Christmas tracks are still a lot of fun and a nice seasonal treat. An even mix of classic covers and original songs, I'll deal with the covers first – they are straight forward dance pop versions of songs already covered in this style by Steps, A*teens et al and the girls versions are no better and no worse, which makes them a little redundant. However, the four original compositions are actually very good and there seems to have been a concerted effort to emulate the classic Phil Spector Christmas album. I Wanna Kiss You So and Not Tonight Santa are the girls at their cheeky/slutty best (ie they are about how crap Christmas will be without a quick shag), while Count The Days so should have been a single instead of their worst single See The Day as it soothing and soulful, festive and fun all at the same time. Christmas Round At Ours rounds things off nicely, and suddenly you get the feeling that just a couple more tracks would have elevated this from a good Christmas album to a great one. You know what? The whole project reminds me of that classic scene from Mean Girls with the hussy performance of Jingle Bell Rock...now who else would love to see what La Lo wrote in the burn book about Paris??
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DOWNLOAD: Girls Aloud Christmas Bonus Disc zipfile
MP3: Mean Girls - Jingle Bell Rock
