Girls Aloud's Official Top 40 biggest songs ever revealed

Girls Aloud were not built to last, but they instead built a legacy that changed the sound and shape of British pop music. 

When put together on Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, Cheryl, Nadine, Kimberley, Nicola and Sarah found a magic, mercurial chemistry together and when paired with experimental, mad-cap production house Xenomania and Brian Higgins, truly transcended their humble roots and aimed for something bigger, brighter and altogether weirder. 

Now, we reveal the group's Official Top 40 biggest songs of all time in the UK. From the opulence of The Promise to Something Kinda Oooh's guileless charm, we've crunched the numbers and fully-updated the girls' most popular tracks.

First, let's take a look at the Top 5.

MORE: See where every Girls Aloud song and album has charted in the UK

5. Jump

Released: 2003
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 2
Total UK chart units: 499,000

Get ready to Jump...the girls performed an energetic cover of  The Pointer Sisters' 1984 track Jump (For My Love) for Christmas staple Love Actually. It turns out, the band's involvement came directly from the top; director-writer Richard Curtis had actually rung Xenomania head honcho Brian Higgins to suggest that the band cover Jump for the film.

Given a nice hi-NRG makeover by Xenomania, Jump chugs along at a panic pace and proved a huge success for Girls Aloud; the track peaked at Number 2 in the UK.

4. Call The Shots

Released: 2007
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 3
Total UK chart units: 520,000

While some of Girls Aloud's most critically acclaimed singles - such as Biology, Sexy! No No No and The Show - all throw conventional pop structure out the window, the brilliance of their most elegant single, Call The Shots, lies in its restraint.

Captured over a rippling electronica production, Call The Shots shows Girls Aloud and Xenomania in a place of hard-won confidence. There was no need to further test and experiment the boundaries of pop music, Call The Shots revels in its simplicity...and is all the better for it. 

The second single from fourth (and some would say best...) album  Tangled Up, Call The Shots originally peaked at Number 3, and has been streamed over 21 million times in the UK, as well as being the band's second-most downloaded track (298,000 digital downloads).

Beloved by the group's fans, Cheryl once named Call The Shots as her favourite Girls Aloud single. And who are we to argue with that?

3. Love Machine

Released: 2004
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 2
Total UK chart units: 694,000

Once wrongfully predicted by the group to be - in Nadine Coyle's own words - 'career suicide,' Love Machine is Girls Aloud's third biggest seller to date.

But, to be fair to the girls, you can see why they were hesitant to record the single at first - no UK girl group had ever made music quite like this. Leaning into the hitherto unexplored waters of rockabilly, Love Machine meshes hilarious, if nonsensical, lyrics (what exactly are 'gift wrapped kitty kats,' please?) with a bass line inspired by The Smiths (!) Love Machine finds its brilliance in its contradictions. 

But despite the band's reluctance, there's no denying that Love Machine went on to be a massive success, and one of their most recognizable hits. It was also one of the first instances where Girls Aloud found themselves not just embraced but praised by the high-brow music press; Arctic Monkeys even gave the group a much-needed shot of indie credibility when they covered it in the BBC Live Lounge. 

2. The Promise

Released: 2008
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 1
Total UK chart units: 860,000

1, 2, 3, 4! Brian Higgins said that when the time came to find the lead single for Girls Aloud's fifth (and would be final) album Out Of Control, they were searching for 'a sound [...] to announce a supergroup. The biggest girl group on the planet."

Inspired by slick Motown production, The Promise is an effortlessly elegant victory lap for Girls Aloud, and its release finally secured their legacy as national treasures. After more than half a decade of pushing the pop envelope, they were finally ready for the public to catch up with them. 

The fourth and final Number 1 single for Girls Aloud in the UK, The Promise is also notable as helping the group finally win their only BRIT Award, for Best British Single, in 2009. When Little Mix became the first girl group to win the BRIT for Best British Group, Girls Aloud (who were nominated for that same award in both 2008 and 2009 but lost out both times) were naturally given a shout out. 

Landing in at second place here, The Promise's total UK chart units tally settles at 860,000 - it's also the group's most digitally downloaded song (518,000 digital downloads).

1. Sound of the Underground

Released: 2002
Official Singles Chart peak: Number 1
Total UK chart units: 1.2 million

What does the future sound like? In one fateful December day in 2002, the future of British pop music sounded like the riff of a surf guitar, before the kick and snare of a drum welcomed Girls Aloud into the world. 

As a starting shot, you could do no better than Sound of the Underground - instantly, Cheryl, Nadine, Kimberely, Nicola and Sarah transcended their reality TV show beginnings (having been put together on Popstars: The Rivals). This was Britain's newest girl band, and they weren't like anything that had come before. They were something entirely new. 

Finding the perfect collaborators in pop contortionists Xenomania, Girls Aloud exploded with Sound of the Underground, and it signposted them as a pop act who weren't prepared to play by pre-determined pop rules. When had a reality TV show winner's single ever sounded like this?

In direct competition with One True Voice for Christmas Number 1, the campaign was on to 'Buy Girls, Bye Boys!' and pop justice reigned supreme - Sound of the Underground debuted at Number 1 as 2002's Christmas Number 1 single and kickstarted Girls Aloud's record-setting 20 consecutive Top 10 singles, a body of work that constantly challenged and interrogated what British pop music could look, do and sound like.

Naturally, Sound of the Underground remains Girls Aloud's biggest song ever in the UK - its all-time chart units tally stands at 1.2 million, including 562,000 physical copies (the most of any of their singles) and 56 million streams, also making it their most-streamed song ever, too. 

See Girls Aloud's Official Top 40 biggest songs on the Official UK Chart: