Girls Aloud biography
Girls Aloud are an English/Irish pop girl group based in London. They were created through the ITV1 talent show Popstars The Rivals in 2002. The group consists of Cheryl Cole (née Tweedy), Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. They are signed to Fascination Records, a Polydor imprint. The group achieved a string of twenty consecutive top ten singles, including four number ones, and two number one albums in the United Kingdom. All of their albums have been certified platinum, with their albums The Sound of Girls Aloud, and Out of Control both selling over one million copies. They have been nominated for five Brit Awards, winning the 2009 Best Single for "The Promise".
Girls Aloud's collaborations with Brian Higgins and his songwriting and production team Xenomania have earned the group critical acclaim, due to an innovative approach to mainstream pop music. The group has become one of the few UK reality television acts to achieve continued success, amassing a fortune of £25 million by May 2010. Guinness World Records lists them as "Most Successful Reality TV Group" in the 2007 edition. They also hold the record for "Most Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a Female Group" in the 2008 edition, and are credited again for "Most Successful Reality TV Group" in the 2011 edition.
Girls Aloud were formed on 30 November 2002, in front of millions of viewers on the ITV1 programme Popstars: The Rivals. The concept of the programme, hosted by Big Brother presenter Davina McCall was to produce a boyband and a girlgroup who would be "rivals" and compete for the 2002 Christmas number one single. Following the initial success of Hear'Say (winners of the original Popstars show), several thousand applicants attended auditions across the UK in hope of being selected. Ten girls and ten boys were chosen as finalists by judges Pete Waterman, Louis Walsh and Geri Halliwell. However, two of these were disqualified before the live shows began: Hazel Kaneswaren was found to be too old to participate whilst Nicola Ward refused to sign the contract, claiming the pay the group would receive was too low. Kimberley Walsh and Nicola Roberts, who had made it into the final fifteen but not the final ten, were chosen as their replacements.
During October and November, the finalists took to the stage participating in weekly Saturday night live performances (alternating week-by-week between the girls and boys). Each week the contestant polling the fewest phone votes was eliminated, until the final line-ups of the groups emerged. The five girls who made it into the group were (in the order announced by the host) Cheryl, Nicola, Nadine, Kimberley and Sarah; Javine Hylton missed out on a place in the group, despite previous expectations that she would be placed in the line-up. The group was named Girls Aloud and were managed by Louis Walsh until 2005 when Hilary Shaw replaced him.
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