Credit: Found On Internet

When this column goes live, Girls Aloud will be number 5 of the UK singles chart with ‘Sexy No No’. The chart might be becoming increasingly meaningless as time goes on, but there’s something to be said about a pop act getting their 16th top ten hit, five years after their formation.

Of course, this comes weeks before arguably the powerhouse monster of all girls groups – The Spice Girls – reform to take on the world. They too lasted for about half a decade, finally burning out a mere two years before Girls Aloud would take on British pop and beat it up like a lippy toilet attendant. And there are some curious similarities between the two groups – the Spice Girls made the mould that Girls Aloud would later go on to break.

If the recent trend of reforming acts has taught us anything, it’s that for every Take That there’s an East 17. Back in the late 90s,, the closest domestic rivals to the Spice Girls were All Saints, who peddled baggy jeans, bad Red Hot Chili Peppers covers and marketable sass. But compared to the steamroller that was Spice, they were the clear also-rans. Then last year, inspired by Take That hysteria reborn, All Sainst tried to jump on the reformation bandwagon, where they fell spectacularly on their arse. Why? Because they tried to take on Girls Aloud at their own game.

The Spice Girls’ global fame will ensure that their comeback is a success – All Saints return failed because they lacked the nostalgia factor that has made the Take That reunion such as smash. That and the fact that they tried to compete with the true heirs to the Spice Girls’ throne: Girls Aloud. Come one, did you ever hear ‘Rocksteady’, their comeback single? It’s an insipid attempt to re-create the synth-pound of Girls Aloud at their best - to which the Aloud gloatingly mocked by singing a piss-take version of ‘Never Ever’ to the voicemail of an un-named All Saint during a newspaper interview.

But it’s not just the crushing of their rivals that links Spice and Aloud. After Simon Fuller re-branded the then laughably-named Touch into the Spice Girls, he set about a campaign of merchandising not seen since the heyday of KISS. In 1997 you could buy a Baby Spice doll in Woolworths; in 2005 you could get a Nadine Coyle Barbie doll for Christmas.