Quick! Someone mash them up with 1D…
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[3.83]
Hazel Robinson: Disappointed that this isn’t the beautiful electro-wistfulness of “On The Metro” but this is at least a perfectly serviceable ballad. For the fans, there’s a lot of nods and service — from Nicola’s agonised “if the whole world calls me ugly“ to the general conceit of them being back together to fix each other somehow, and it’s nice to remember that they can all actually really sing. There isn’t a great deal beyond that, though and they’ve never been a ballads band.
[6]
Anthony Easton: The my baby chorus and the marshmallow clouds of vocal performances are the sugar that makes the cliched message go down.
[5]
Will Adams: There’s a funny bit in the chorus, where the enjambment makes for a declaration that’s a bit awkward in a love song: “You don’t love me… ’cause I’m beautiful.” But unintentional comedy won’t redeem this blatant “Skyscraper” rip-off, especially with this much treacle and overproduction.
[2]
Alfred Soto: What a triumph if those swelling chords had supported a line that sounds like, “You don’t love me cuz I’m beautiful.”
[3]
Edward Okulicz: I’m actually quite fond of a slew of Girls Aloud’s ballads. But much as “Something New” was a sub-par GA banger, “Beautiful” is a sub-par GA ballad. Its lyrics are dreadfully trite, parts of the melody seem to want to launch off into “Show Me Heaven” and the song would probably benefit from the mutation.
[3]
Iain Mew: “Basin”/”face in” is the first rhyme. Followed by “racing”/”taste it”. The song sounds like an answer to, and affirmation of, “Little Things”, but the writing is even worse than Ed Sheeran’s. The vocal performances have a shot at saving it, but the over-sugary production kills off that chance.
[3]
Doug Robertson: No-one ever — EVER — has bought a Girls Aloud album thinking “Ooh, I hope there’s a whole lotta ballads on this!”. And really, it’s a bit too late to be doing an answer song to Daphne and Celeste’s “Ugly.”
[4]
Ian Mathers: Yes, we should all appreciate things on their own merits, preconceptions are a horrible thing, how dare you expect artists to stay within whatever box you want them to stay in, etc; pop is unfair. This is not what I want from Girls Aloud.
[4]
Brad Shoup: It’s faith that transforms an icky-in-grand-context 1D or Girls Aloud or Marianas Trench lyric into something usable. That first verse is so clunky, but they do end up with “naked as a girl can be,” which is kinda profound, no? Still, the song is handled with the didactic simplicity of some evangelical praise monstrosity. It plods, it hovers, it gives me a medal for being a Nice Guy.
[2]
Jer Fairall: Being loved by someone should by all means make you feel beautiful to a fuck-the-world-if-it-don’t-agree degree, but the more that your self worth is based on this fact, as appears to be the case here, the uglier the fallout will be if it doesn’t work out. I’m not looking forward to the follow-up single, is what I’m saying.
[5]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This makes for a fine album track, but at this point each Girls Aloud single needs to be a knockout on the level of, say, best newie “Every Now and Then”. They’ve been away too long to rest on their laurels. I could play Cheryl’s pronunciation of the word “basin” through a good ten times, however.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: I have been very much affected by this Girls Aloud ballad, which I presume was their intent. I doubt it’s for the same reasons. Oh, the reverbed cries are affecting enough, and the stadium percussion, but those are only snippets of verses. The thing is… you know, there’s a pretty damn easy way for the guy to eliminate both “you’re beautiful” and “I love you” in one shot; it’d be like God in the Plato dialogue this comes from retorting “fuck you, you think you’re pious?“, part of some anachronistic Calvinist soul-dumping that happens all the time. Poof: song’s horrifying. The oversinging just makes it worse; every note’s delivered with so much chest-clinging conviction, as if the Girls Aloud reunion had an all-new lineup of all Lea Micheles. The violins don’t help either. Nor does the teary-then-happy verse. (If you’re so content in your own skin, why is your mascara running?) Everything just tries so hard, and it seems rather a gamble. This says rather more about me than the song, I realize (criticism is not narcissism), so let’s assume there’s in fact no doomed subtext and that this is just overblown. Seems likely enough.
[4]