We’re not going to lie to you. We gave up after six songs. Now while some would say that isn’t fair on poor old Roy and the rest of Scouting For Girls, we’d say they are big and ugly enough not to care. Well, maybe.
Actually, scrap that. On this evidence we are probably wrong, they probably do care, which is even more worrying. You may be asking yourself why we are even reviewing this. Yes, it’s well outside our usual remit, but having been given a copy we thought we’d enlighten you as to exactly why Radio 1 seems adamant to playlist these London boys as much as possible. The only problem with that being that we can’t figure it out ourselves. Sure, She’s So Lovely is catchy, and the subsequent singles and indeed most of the album are just reworkings of that one template, but it really doesn’t explain why the broadcaster who so readily promotes that ‘In New Music We Trust’ has so much faith in this piss poor band.
Indeed it is not overly harsh to say Scouting For Girls are the most lyrically shallow band since Busted famously uttered the words: ‘I’ve been to the year three thousand/Not much has changed but they lived under water/And your great great great grand daughter is pretty fine.’ And that is saying something. Scouting for Girls can do far better though, in fact whole songs better, including one dedicated to Z-list celebrity Michaela Strachan. ‘I turned on the telly/When I got home from school/She was there in her wellies/And a yellow Cagoule’, sings Roy about his oh so weird obsession. Unfortunately tunes like this and others about wanting to be James Bond and girls being ‘lovely’ only belong on primary school radios.
Quite simply, Scouting For Girls seem to have no soul – not that it will surprise you – and even if they do its not one you ever would want to discover for fear of melting in its insignificance.