There are five different ways of launching a new girlband in 2019. Six, at a push. And one of them is what we see this week with unperfect, a new four-piece from Brian Higgins and Xenomania.
There's a lot to like about unperfect.
You could probably extrapolate most of the band's qualities from the fact that they don't have a capital letter in their name but the group's promo text spells it all out quite clearly, peppered as it is with phrases like "no-bullshit", "a world away from traditional, glossy major label groups", "self-penned", "retro-modern" and "a left-field twist". At one point Tiah from the band states "we all have our flaws"; Soipan, meanwhile, says they don't cry over men. It's noted that the band formed themselves rather than being put together; they styled themselves from shopping in charity shops.
In short: not exactly Girls Aloud. Some people will be sad about that. The rest of us will breathe a sigh of relief. The world does not need a Girls Aloud in 2019. What the world might need, however, is a girlband making music is as interesting, and as unsecondguessable, and as confident as Girls Aloud's once was. And that wouldn't actually sound like Girls Aloud's music, would it? It would sound totally different.
Luckily Xenomania have always been quite good at the whole 'totally different' thing, and listening through unperfect songs that seems to be what we're dealing with here. The first to be revealed is Gots To Give The Girl, which premieres today over on The Fader.
Notes:
As well as boasting a Soipan, unperfect also include a Siobhan, which is quite good isn't it?
The Something Kinda Ooooh reference in this article's headline might have worked better had Xenomania not also been responsible for a girlband song called Something New.
The band's bio is surely the first in pop history to make reference to a band all getting the shits.