Yes, they had a stupid name, yes they were poorly managed and yes two of them were allegedly as pleasant as syphilis but one thing most pop fans won’t deny is that they were recording and releasing some pretty brilliant pop songs.

The album sampler featured several great but not quite good enough to save the band type songs but I found five unheard tracks that were also supposed to be on their album conveniently in my inbox earlier today.

I hope Fascination Records do the smart thing and either make these songs available for download legally as I’m sure there are quite a few people who would be interested in having the album as a final farewell to the girlband that never really happened. Or maybe they could pass them onto one of their other artists before they leak (edit: it appears it’s too late, those pesky YouTubers!) which may not be such a bad idea as some of these songs could easily be re-recorded by The Saturdays. Although it’s probably too late for any of them to go on ‘Headlines’, you know that bizarro ‘not short enough to be an EP, too short to be a proper album’ thing they’ll be releasing next month that has left people scratching their heads a bit, trying to figure out why it’s not a full album or a re-release of ‘Wordshaker’.

One song ‘You’re The Kinda Man’ (a ramped up cover of the Sarah Connor song) is quite amazing, maybe not hit single amazing but it’s as good as an album track can get. The lyrics are very Saturdays, I would say very Girls Can’t Catch too but we never really got to know who they were as a band really. The label shoved them into a rubbish dump and made them play croquet, then told people ‘look how very un-Saturdays they are, they don’t mind a bit of filth, they’re quite urban really but they sing pop songs. As if that was ever going to work! The song has a sexy, rather brilliant chorus and it’s the type of ‘progressive’ material The Saturdays should’ve released along with their ‘mature’ second album as they would’ve been sticking to the electro-pop sound of their debut album while sounding a bit more grown up lyrically and it also makes a change from the ‘wrong women’ songs that were at the centre of ‘Chasing Lights’.

Instead, they’ve found themselves in a rut after alienating their fanbase with a faux-rock lead single and a second album littered with mid-tempos despite 99.9% of their single output being uptempo. Even new single ‘Missing You’, which albeit is better than ‘Forever Is Over’ by a small margin, they’ve not returned to their uptempo, electro-pop routes instead opting for a not particularly well produced electro-ballad that borders on generic R&B. I’m sure it will do reasonably well but it hasn’t got their old fans rejoicing like ‘Higher’, another song off their upcoming ‘mini-album’ thing, has. ‘Higher’ shaping up to be a very amazing, should’ve been lead single type of song but at least they’re continuing the rubbish lead single streak they’ve had going on since ‘Chasing Lights’ and got themselves a hat trick. As long as ‘Higher’ or something equally amazing is released as the second single, they’ll achieve an amazing second singles hat trick too and the balance will be restored.

Anyway, back to Girls Can’t Catch, ‘Discover Me’ was penned by ‘sixth Saturday’ Ina Wroldsen and so obviously has that simple, repetitive but catchy Wroldsen chorus: ‘So I am ready to be, found, found / yeah, I am ready baby / discover, dis-discover me / I’m looking for adventure / so if you’re ready for me, baby / discover, dis-discover me / I’m looking for adventure’ and so goes. It’s almost like these songs were made to be on a Saturdays album, no?

There are three more songs, ‘Mind It’, ‘Live My Way’ and ‘Last One Standing’ (which is not a cover of that oh so bad it’s oh so good Girl Thing song unfortunately but just so happens to be just as amazing as ‘You’re The Kinda Man’) and I would go on to describe them in detail too but I think I’ve made my point. Some of these songs are too good to go to waste. Pass them on or release them.