Review: Chasing Lights

Chasing Lights, The Saturdays (2008)

For me there are three types of music - Music played by proper musicians, Music I like to Listen To, and then Chart Music. Very rarely, the last two overlap, but here they do not. When I review Chart Music, I always manage to find some problem or just some way of not liking it. But I've set myself a challenge. Listen to some stereotypically Chart-Pop and see what I can make of it. Cue The Saturdays.
     The high-time of my music Nostalgia is Summer 2008, and this is where The Saturdays really stepped onto the market with single "Up". It was formulaic, but catchy, and so it of course shot up the charts. The rest of this albums' singles and all of the tracks in general are quite similar - electro-pop melodies with little passion or energy, mostly about talking to some man about some vague relationship troubles. Does it entertain? To the populist mind, yeah. They're ok songs for the teen market, and qualify well for the Chart Music category. As a more experienced and private thing? Well, for nostalgia maybe, but no self-respecting person listens to The Saturdays for their entertainment value.
     Looking at the group dynamic, it's certainly a strong bond. You get a certain feeling of sisterly bonding but each is audibly different enough to stand out in her own right. The problem is more structure and content than anything else - songs that have lazily repetitive lyrics with uninspiring subjects. The Saturdays fill the Chart niche just fine, and I don't think they want to climb out of it.

Thanks.