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"Untouchable" is a song performed by British all-female pop group
Girls Aloud Girls Aloud were an pop girl group that was created through the ITV talent show '' Popstars: The Rivals'' in 2002. The group comprised singers Cheryl, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh. The group achieved a str ...
, taken from their fifth studio album '' Out of Control'' (2008). The song was written by
Miranda Cooper Miranda Eleanor De Fonbrune Cooper (born 1975) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and television presenter. Miranda Cooper has worked in the music industry since 1996 when she gained her first recording contract. She wor ...
,
Brian Higgins Brian Michael Higgins (born October 6, 1959) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving since 2005. The district, numbered as the 27th district from 2005 to 2013 but as the 26th since 2013, includes Buffalo and N ...
and his production team
Xenomania Xenomania is an English songwriting and production team founded by Brian Higgins and based in Kent, England. Formed by Higgins with his Creative Director Miranda Cooper and Business Director Sarah Stennett of First Access Entertainment, Xenoman ...
, and produced by Higgins and Xenomania. Influenced by
trance music Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes. Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 135–150 beats per minut ...
and Balearic beat, the album version of "Untouchable" is almost seven minutes long. Remixed for single release in April 2009, "Untouchable" memorably became Girls Aloud's first of only two singles to miss the top ten on the
UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
, breaking a run of 20 top ten hits. The song received generally favorable reviews from most contemporary music critics, who praised its ambition. "Untouchable" would be the final release by the group before their hiatus. In the accompanying
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
, inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film '' 2001: Space Odyssey'', the group members travel through space and approaches Earth in illuminated glass spheres, resembling meteorites. "Untouchable" was promoted through an appearance on '' Dancing on Ice'', and was later performed on the group's
Out of Control Tour The Out of Control Tour was the fifth concert tour by British-Irish girl group Girls Aloud. It supported their fifth studio album '' Out of Control''. Initially, just ten dates in bigger arenas were announced in November 2008. Due to demand, mo ...
(2009) and Ten: The Hits Tour (2013).


Background and composition

"Untouchable" is a trance-inspired "rave ballad," which marries " Balearic guitar lines with a pulsating techno throb." The song is Girls Aloud's longest yet, at a full runtime of 6:45. "Untouchable" follows the common verse-chorus form, but includes a number of
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...
solos.
Nadine Coyle Nadine Elizabeth Louise Coyle (born 15 June 1985) is an Irish singer, actress and model. In 2002, Coyle was selected as a member of the girl group Girls Aloud, with whom she has been successful in achieving a string of 20 consecutive UK top te ...
sings a
middle 8 The 32- bar form, also known as the AABA song form, American popular song form and the ballad form, is a song structure commonly found in Tin Pan Alley songs and other American popular music, especially in the first half of the 20th century. ...
("Without any meaning, we're just skin and bone...") as the music drops out. The song builds back up and concludes with a final chorus. The "emotional twangy guitar noise" heard in the song was the result of Xenomania musician Jason Resch responding to Higgins' request for something "special". Higgins left the song at its full length, knowing that " The Promise" and "
The Loving Kind "The Loving Kind" is a song by English-Irish girl group Girls Aloud, taken from their fifth studio album '' Out of Control'' (2008). The song was written by Pet Shop Boys, Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins and his production team Xenomania, and pro ...
" would be the first two singles and he could remix "Untouchable" for single release at a later point. The song was "chopped and changed for its single release", with Girls Aloud's vocals being
vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...
ed.


Release

"Untouchable" was selected as the third single from '' Out of Control'' after it fared best in a fan poll on Girls Aloud's official forum. It was announced as the single on 20 February 2009. "Untouchable" was released on
CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any si ...
and 7" vinyl formats on 27 April, while digital download formats were available a day earlier. The CD includes a previously unreleased b-side entitled "It's Your Dynamite", which Digital Spy says "matches the standard set on their previous releases ..a treat for the ears." The 7" vinyl picture disc format includes the Thriller Jill Mix of "Love Is the Key", as heard on ''
The Girls Aloud Party ''The Girls Aloud Party'' was a one-off Christmas variety show starring British girl group Girls Aloud, produced for ITV. The show was aired on 13 December 2008, in between ''The X Factor'' series finale and its results show. All five members t ...
'' opening credits and commercials. A promo CD was released with various remixes previously unreleased or part of the singles collection.


Reception


Critical response

"Untouchable" received generally favourable reviews from
music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...
. '' Slant Magazine'' said that it was "one of Girls Aloud's finest achievements." Matthew Horton of ''
The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quietu ...
'' labelled the song as an "epic, a nearly-seven-minute monster". Similarly, John Murphy from '' MusicOMH'' called the track an "epic seven-minute electro-thumper which builds slowly, explodes into life, drops out brilliantly, then bursts back into life". In a blog for
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, Fraser McAlpine agreed that "it's epic and dreamy and a bit of a diversion from the usual GA pattern while still being recognisably very Girls Aloud." It was also praised by ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
''s Jaimie Hodgson, described as "post-Ibiza power-balladeering". The song was referred to as "fast, electronic and fantastic" with an immense build-up to the chorus by Peter Robinson from
Popjustice Popjustice is a music website founded in 2000 by UK freelance music journalist Peter Robinson, who has worked for ''NME'', ''The Guardian'', '' Attitude'' and many others. It is composed of the work of editor Robinson, features editor Michael Cr ...
. Talia Kraines of
BBC Music BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, and the BBC Asian Network. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio ...
felt "the Balearic bliss of epic seven minute marathon Untouchable ..prove that you don't have to be brassy to be brilliant." Michael Cragg from ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' called it a proper "statement song", as well as "the band's most effortless-sounding single" without ever feeling overly long. Nick Levine of Digital Spy said the song "serves as the centrepiece" on the album and that even the radio edit "remains surprising, thrilling and strangely moving - in short, classic Girls Aloud." Matthew Chisling from
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
deemed it "the album's most club-friendly smash". '' Newsround'' declared it "seems to want to be a ballad and a dance track without doing either well."
GayNZ.com GayNZ.com is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community website for New Zealand. Prior to the websites closure in 2018, it posted daily local and international news stories, monitors fundamentalist Christian politics in New Zealand a ...
s Andrew Grear stated that the song "works....but possibly not as well as the girls were hoping." Andy Gill from ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' called it a "stomp-a-matic filler" from the album.


Chart performance

The song entered the
UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
on 29 March 2009 at number 54. It entered the top forty three weeks later. On 3 May 2009, it officially reached number eleven. On the Irish Singles Chart, the song entered at number 38 and peaked at number nineteen. After the single failed to achieve top ten success when it was released late April 2009, a fan-created
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
campaign was started nearly a year later (January 2010). The group hoped to push the single into the top ten, reviving and continuing Girls Aloud's streak. The campaign failed, with "Untouchable" only charting at number 152.


Music video

The music video for "Untouchable" was directed by Marco Puig with post-production from The Mill. Shot in a west London studio on 18 March 2009, the filming took sixteen hours. The video premiered on 25 March 2009 on
4music 4Music is a British music television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. The original incarnation was launched on 15 August 2008, and until 29 June 2022, showed a mix of music and entertainment programming. I ...
at 7:00pm GMT and was shown again at 11:05pm on
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
. The "Untouchable" video was made available on
MSN MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...
the following day. The futuristic video was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's classic science fiction film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. Girls Aloud appear in "sci-fi inspired PVC leotards", travelling through space and approaching Earth in illuminated glass spheres (resembling meteorites). After the second verse, the words 'Alert: Condition Red' appear on the screen and the girls have trouble in their bubble-like orbs. They begin to plummet through Earth's atmosphere, with the spheres erupting in flames. Still burning, they pass an aeroplane and approach a city. The video ends with televisions showing the 'breaking news' as they hit the ground, with a reporter describing it as a "meteor shower" before turning to static. Digital Spy lauded the "Untouchable" music video as "almost as exciting as the song itself."


Live performances

The first performance of the song occurred at the '' Dancing on Ice'' semi-finals. Girls Aloud entered on wires suspended from the ceiling and performed the song whilst ice dancers
Torvill and Dean Torvill and Dean (Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean) are English ice dancers and former British, European, Olympic, and World champions. At the Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics the pair won gold and became the highest-scoring figure skaters of a ...
skated around them. Girls Aloud wore draped
Grecian The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
dresses. Smoke followed the group as they were lowered down on to individual podiums. As Nadine sang the final verse, Torvill and Dean were raised into the air on wires. The song ended with an explosion of pyrotechnics. Torvill and Dean were criticised for "completely and utterly ruining the momentum and energy." "Untouchable" was one of the most significant performances of Girls Aloud's 2009
Out of Control Tour The Out of Control Tour was the fifth concert tour by British-Irish girl group Girls Aloud. It supported their fifth studio album '' Out of Control''. Initially, just ten dates in bigger arenas were announced in November 2008. Due to demand, mo ...
. The song is "performed over the crowd on a flying platform," which Girls Aloud used to travel to a smaller stage in the middle of the arena. The group wore
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
-inspired outfits, designed by Welsh fashion designer Julien MacDonald, along with the rest of the show's costumes. According to Lauren Mulvenny from the '' Belfast Telegraph'', the performance got "a great crowd reaction." The song was performed on 2013 Ten: The Hits Tour with the girls singing it on a stage in the middle of the arena.


Formats and track listings

These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "Untouchable". UK CD # "Untouchable" (Radio Mix) – 3:49 # "It's Your Dynamite" (Girls Aloud, Xenomania) – 4:21 UK 7" picture disc # "Untouchable" (Radio Mix) – 3:49 # "Love Is the Key" (Thriller Jill Mix) – 6:35 Digital download # "Untouchable" (Radio Mix) – 3:49 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Radio Edit) – 3:46 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Club Mix) – 6:04 iTunes download # "Untouchable" (Radio Mix) – 3:49 # "Untouchable" (Album Version Edit) – 3:03 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Club Mix) – 6:04 ''The Singles Boxset'' (CD21) # "Untouchable" (Radio Mix) – 3:49 # "It's Your Dynamite" – 4:21 # "Love Is the Key" (Thriller Jill Mix) – 6:35 # "Untouchable" (Album Version Edit) – 3:03 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Club Mix) – 6:04 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Radio Edit) – 3:46 # "Untouchable" (Bimbo Jones Dub) – 6:02 Promo CD # "Untouchable" (Almighty Essential Radio Edit) – 4:36 # "Untouchable" (Almighty Essential Mix) – 9:11 # "Untouchable" (Almighty Alternative Vocal Mix) – 9:11 # "Untouchable" (Almighty Essential Dub) – 9:13 # "Untouchable" (Almighty Essential Instrumental) – 9:11


Credits and personnel

*Bass guitar: Kieran Jons *Engineering: Toby Scott, Dan Aslet *Guitars: Nick Coler, Jason Resch *Keyboards and programming: Tim Powell,
Brian Higgins Brian Michael Higgins (born October 6, 1959) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving since 2005. The district, numbered as the 27th district from 2005 to 2013 but as the 26th since 2013, includes Buffalo and N ...
,
Miranda Cooper Miranda Eleanor De Fonbrune Cooper (born 1975) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and television presenter. Miranda Cooper has worked in the music industry since 1996 when she gained her first recording contract. She wor ...
, Owen Parker, Fred Falke, Sascha Collison, Matt Gray *Mixing: Tim Powell, Brian Higgins *Songwriting: Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins, Tim Powell, Matt Gray *Published by
Warner/Chappell Music Warner Chappell Music, Inc. is an American music publishing company and a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group. Warner Chappell Music's catalogue consists of over 1.4 million compositions and 65,000 composers, with offices in over 40 countries. ...
and Xenomania Music


Charts


References


External links


Girls Aloud's official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Untouchable 2000s ballads 2008 songs 2009 singles Synth-pop ballads Girls Aloud songs Song recordings produced by Xenomania Songs written by Brian Higgins (producer) Songs written by Miranda Cooper Songs written by Tim Powell (producer) Fascination Records singles