As Girls Aloud’s iconic discography goes, there are very few low points for the group, comprised of Cheryl Tweedy, Nadine Coyle, Nicola Roberts, Kimberley Walsh and the late Sarah Harding.
While Call The Shots and Sound of The Underground reside peacefully in the hallowed halls of pop fame, the other end of the scale sees offerings like their covers of I Think We’re Alone Now and See The Day flounder in some pretty murky depths... but they’re still not the worst.
That (dis)honour – according to Nadine herself – befalls the universally-panned 2012 ballad, Beautiful ’Cause You Love Me.
As part of a wider Soundtrack of My Life interview with NME, the Girls Aloud star revealed the one song she can no longer listen to – before pivoting to slamming one of the band’s own singles.
“Any time I hear [Aha’s] Take On Me, it immediately puts me in a bad mood because something about it is so jarring,” Nadine revealed.
Then, she turned her attention to the band’s final single, Beautiful ’Cause You Love Me; and she didn’t hold back.
“I don’t feel the same way about any of the songs I’ve recorded,” she began, before adding: “Except for maybe Beautiful ’Cause You Love Me. But we just forget that song ever happened – it’s a mirage; it didn’t happen.”
Nadine has previously made no secret of her dislike of the song – and in 2017, she told The Guardian that when she heard Beautiful ’Cause You Love Me was being touted as their comeback single after a brief hiatus, she felt she “couldn’t do the reunion”.
“But then I got a call back saying it was now Something New and I was like, ‘OK, let’s do it’,” she continued, before adding: “Beautiful ’cause you love me’? We’re beautiful anyway!”
When Beautiful ’Cause You Love Me was eventually released as a follow-up single to Something New, it only peaked at number 97 on the charts, becoming Girls Aloud’s only single to miss the top 40 (and one of only two to miss the top 10).