Official store has gone live, also including a Picture Disc, and there's an exclusive sticker sheet: https://shop.girlsaloud.com/

Instagram post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DNVG1QVo9P3/

Agreed that there are a few notable omissions and I'm also not sure how to feel about 'Sound of...' content bleeding into this era, but I still applaud the overall effort and am so excited to have this in my vinyl collection! 'Money' feels apt right now as GA and Taylor are taking a lot of mine today 😅

p.s. the stickers look cute <3 nothing can top the 'Biology' McDonalds music player for Chemistry merch ofc but good work x edit: just seen that all the sticker bundles on their store are already sold out 😮

16 minutes ago, Jade said:

edit: just seen that all the sticker bundles on their store are already sold out 😮

Nooo I hadn't made an order yet 😭 I hadn't seen until now that the stickers are exclusive to the first 250 vinyl orders. Now why would they do that?? 😔

Back cover:

Looks amazing, glad the original Singapore is on here too so will be available to stream to. Cool to see a few vault tracks and alternative versions, they must have loads of the latter lying about from where they swapped lyrics and vocalists on various songs.

I don't mind the Sound Of stuff being on here, if no separate release is being planned for that - I think these albums are being treated as batches of years and the Chemistry era seems to relate to 2005-6. Every other year between 2003 and 2008 they released a studio album apart from 2006 so I guess they felt that material had to go somewhere and it makes more sense here than the post-hits era Tangled Up, which felt like a clean slate for them in so many ways.

Maybe they will do a Ten vinyl release instead at some point as they seem to treat that as being the definitive hits collection despite the huge success of Sound Of.

These re-releases remind me of the fantastic Pet Shop Boys Further Listening projects, which again bundled together all the b-sides and rare tracks recorded not just for an album but the whole era in question, including one-off projects happening in the corresponding years covered. I've gone back to the WWTNS re-release a lot since it came out last year.

“Alongside 'Singapore', the album includes 'Naked In the Shower, a track that hints at the dancier direction the band were moving towards, 'You Go Too Fast (Demo)' originally written (although not included) for the 'Herbie: Fully Loaded' movie soundtrack and 'Watch Me Go (We're Disco)' an alternate version of the Chemistry album track featuring a new intro and an extra middle eight section.“

Not them being rejected twice for the Herbie: Fully Loaded movie omg- (Long Hot Summer being the other rejection!)

The definitive Singapore is nice. Naked in the shower sounds interesting lol.

It does look amazing and I'm not mad at all about the Sound of Girls Aloud stuff featuring on here, I did find it unlikely that we'd get a re-issue of that! Shame we're not getting What a Feeling at least though.

So far I've ordered the 3CD from Amazon. Of course I'll get both vinyl variants but money's a bit tight at the moment, might have to wait to order in September. Although I'm nervous about the picture disc - I probably don't need to be because both the Sound of the Underground and What Will the Neighbours Say picture discs are still available, but FOMO is real! I'm still devastated about the sticker sheet!! xxx

Some bad news I've just seen on Popjustice re: sticker sheets / further merch drops for this album: https://forum.popjustice.com/threads/girls-aloud-chemistry-20th-anniversary-edition-sep-26.75500/post-9769354

Shame. I got two of the sticker sheets for What Will The Neighbours Say? so I was hoping to get at least one of them this time 😔

Preordered the vinyl straight away. This remains their best album for me

11 hours ago, Silas said:

Preordered the vinyl straight away. This remains their best album for me

I agree it is my fave from them too 😍

I think Chemistry is my second fave behind Tangled Up!

I just don’t think I’ll ever quite get over how the singles run was handled!

See the Day… I think there were more cons than pros to this release. The one pro is that radio & TV channels embraced it, so maaaybe it can be considered as a strong factor in encouraging album sales. Yet it only reached #9 and I think this was the moment that they were beginning to look like cover versions were a crutch for them. I wish their label had been more bold and believed in the strength of the original material. I think Whole Lotta History would have been a stronger choice for Christmas. Maybe backed up with one of the Christmas songs on the CD single, but not necessarily a Double A Side. That would have left room for the 4th single in March to be an uptempo, and considering the use of Models on Off the Record, that would have made sense as a single I think.

I just don’t think the singles run gives a fair reflection on what the album is actually like overall. I’d argue that the album artwork doesn’t either. The artwork probably suggests that the album would be more along the lines of See the Day and Whole Lotta History actually. 😅 It’s a lovely picture of them but I think “lovely picture” is an interesting way of presenting what is for the most part a zany pop album.

They were pretty lucky to survive this era; The Greatest Hits felt like a lifeline. It feels funny to say “survive the era” when it was Platinum certified and had 4 Top 10 hits, just things were quite different back then and it kind of felt like they were struggling and hanging on for dear life. It always struck me in the documentary series how dejected Sarah came across when Whole Lotta History “only” reached #6. I think back then she felt it needed to do better for the sake of the band.

Anyway, the way things were commercially speaking at that time, never took away from the album being fabulous… and they did their first arena tour off the back of it 🤩

I think you hit the nail on the head there Jay

Biology

Whole lotta history / Not tonight Santa (or another upbeat original Xmas song)

Models

Would have been a perfect run of singles, not sure a fourth one would have done as well so stick to the three. Long hot summer was also a bit of a misfire with it ruining their top 5 streak, however it's utterly fabulous and I feel like it has become a bit of a GA classic so all is forgiven. 😍

I wasn't massively enamoured by Chemistry on the whole, although the Christmas bonus disc was a great treat that I have listened to a lot over the years.

Biology (amazing)/Whole Lotta History (my favourite GA ballad)/Wild Horses and Models I still play a lot, See The Day I liked at the time but less so now and Long Hot Summer I have grown to enjoy a lot more over time after only quite liking it when it came out. Watch Me Go is also decent but there are a few I don't listen to, whereas Tangled Up has a lot fewer skips for me, I think that's their magnum opus for me personally, I love it and it brings back so many good memories.

I agree with Jay that despite the high sales, the No.11 peak accompanied by a No.9 single at the time wasn't exactly positive news for them. I remember thinking they were in trouble too until Something Kinda Ooooh turned things around (I was so ecstatic and surprised when that had such a high debut on downloads alone). And Biology of course did a lot of legwork in getting critics on side, enabling a critical reappraisal of their worth just in time for the Sound Of a year later. So Chemistry definitely did play its part in their legacy but there were still a few fillers.

Whose idea was it to leave Crazy Fool off the album? They are indeed a crazy fool because that was my third favourite song of the entire era.

Edited Sunday at 18:552 days by gooddelta

Crazy Fool is definitely one of their best B Sides It was interesting how they'd sometimes release songs that were solo (or maybe a couple of them on vocals). In this case, Crazy Fool being fully Cheryl!

I still remember browsing the official charts website on chart day, which only showed 10 albums per page, and being devastated (dramatic!) that Chemistry wasn't there. To then see it at the top of "page 2" at #11 lol. Then it felt cruel to find out just how close it was, only a couple of hundred sales behind.

I definitely think time has been kind to Long Hot Summer. When it premiered I was initially unsure about it, but I played it a lot and it eventually clicked for me and I did genuinely love it. Yet I still sensed throughout the promotion that the song wasn't connecting like any of their previous singles had. Something felt off, somehow. It's sometimes been suggested that the weather at the time didn't help its case (it hadn't been a long hot summer, lol) and maybe that did have something to do with it perhaps! Although I hoped for Top 5, I don't think I was hugely surprised by how it performed... although I was upset about #7 (again, dramatic ). It being a #7 kind of made the song come across as a bit of a black sheep in their singles run, a feeling I'd say lasted for years in the fanbase, even though they had other singles miss the Top 5 afterwards. I feel like Long Hot Summer got quite a lot of the blame for how the era went overall. I continued to love the song, but the negative association was definitely there. I think in the years that have passed, that feeling has faded. I feel like it's aged nicely and it sits well in their run of singles. Justice for Long Hot Summer was truly served last year at the Girls Aloud Show arena tour, it had such a great reception!

It really did go down a storm at the live shows last year which was amazing to see. Time has been kind to it but it was 100% a black sheep of the singles discography for a long time. I feel like it would have worked better as a final single for Chemistry rather than a pre-album single. But then I fear it would have missed the top 10 too so they made the right decision.

Yeah I just checked and it only peaked at No.8 in my personal chart too at the time and they pretty much always made No.1 or No.2! I liked it - don't get me wrong - but something didn't fully click. I think you're right - it wasn't a long hot summer, it was a meandering and depressing gloomy summer, and the song didn't fit what was happening! Maybe it was the right song at the wrong time?

Also if you look at what else was charting then, it was up against a sad summer soundtrack of James Blunt, Daniel Powter, Mariah Carey etc, pop-rock from Kelly Clarkson and lots of indie stuff. Was the appetite there at the time for a song that - to me at the time - felt like b-tier Girls Aloud?

Obviously it had a reappraisal on its own merits outside of the context of summer 2005, and it deserved that, but at the time it really didn't feel like it fit somehow, and I can't put my finger on why that is.

Whereas Biology a few months later felt so fresh and like it had a real vision, and a great video in comparison. Pop really came back with force anyway that autumn so it was in good company - there was loads of great British pop stuff around from Sugababes, Liberty X, Simon Webbe, Friday Hill, Charlotte Church, Rachel Stevens etc!