The indie hipster lobby has placed significant pressure on Wilftonville to name TV On The Radio as the best group of 2008. However, Wilftonville cannot help but notice that their album is somewhat limp, despite several crafty and fascinating songs within the tracklisting. Similarly, Vampire Weekend seem unappealing and Elbow still aren’t playing their strengths enough. On the lighter end of the scale, The Ting Tings were vapid and fun, but the fact that their drummer refuses to take off his sunglasses when he goes indoors automatically rules them as void for the award. There were a lot of new bands who stomped into the music scene this year, but it felt a bit strange to see them there. There weren't any bands who exploded straight into our hearts and minds, and took over everything. Instead, it was probably Take That who really had control over everything - in light of a poor showing from girlie favourite Westlife, who were notably absent, thankfully.
But Take That's songs weren't very good, truth be told, and this left us wondering just who could claim the award and do justice to it? That's when it struck us:
Girls Aloud. The fantastic fivesome spent most of 2008 establishing a dominance over the Sugababes – a battle which has raged for many years now, and only now have the ‘babes surrendered. Also, The Spice Girls flopped hilariously because they only regrouped for the money and don’t really like each other, which meant that Nadine, Cheryl, Nicola, Sarah and Kimberly were the last girls standing – and they celebrated this with an ITV Special. Classy! Also, Cheryl was on some sort of reality TV show and got the band loads of free publicity from that. And hey; their songs were great, too. Even after four years, their producers still manage to offer up new and interesting directions for the girls to take their music in.
Awarded to: Girls Aloud
