Music Review

04 July 2009 12:41 BST

Scouting for Girls: Scouting for Girls

Scouting for Girls: Scouting for Girls

Epic, out September 17th.

In a nutshell...

Jaunty, heel-clipping indie stuff

What's it all about?

An attempt to give a soundtrack to a joyous summer and the musical equivalent of ringing door bells and running off. Including songs like James Bond, Elvis Ain't Dead and She's So Lovely; the story of the album is you're looking for a girl, you fantasise about dirty women in their 30s, you find one, she bogs off, you feel sad, you want to be James Bond.

Who's it by

Scouting for Girls are a three-piece from Harrow, not the school but the bit of London. Apparently they were in the top ten with She's So Lovely.

As an example...

"I love the way she makes me drool, I think she is beauti-fool. She's so lovely, she's so lovely, she's so lovely, she's so lovely" - She's So Lovely

Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys

A shoe-in for the s*******t band in Christendom category.

What the others say

"More of a tiresome ramble than a thrilling adventure." – The Guardian.

"They sing about girls, they sound like McFly and they don't use a guitar." – ContactMusic.

So is it any good?

Ten reasons for not liking Scouting for Girls:

1 Lyrically without wit or interest.
2 A bonus track that is an ode to Michaela Strachan.
3 When I am trying to cut my carbon footprint, I burned substantial amounts of fossil fuels listening to it and writing a review.
4 I want to hit every member and I hate violence so this makes me want to hate myself.
5 I have lost hours of my life that I will never get back when I could have been playing with my Lego.
6 Despite wanting to be carefree as Belle and Sebastian and joyful as Supergrass, Scouting for Girls is a wet weekend. A very poor man's Ben Fold's Five.
7 They had a Radio 2 session with Dermot O'Leary.
8 All insipid.
9 How dare someone feel so important that they should share their banal lives and thoughts with the general public?
10 My MP3 player thinks the album is by Toni Braxton.

Ten reasons why Scouting for Girls is good:

1 Reasonable cover
2 Fans of the Scouting for Girls can be identified as those that should be removed from society more easily (see their MySpace friends, remember there faces and spurn them).
3 Kind of catchy.
4 It tries to be fun, and what's wrong with that.
5 Sorry, there are no more reasons, I can't be bothered with this.

I'm not even bothering /10



Daniel Barnes

"I've only heard the dreary single on the radio, but I can imagine the rest of the album will be as devoid of wit or wisdom.

"Do we really need any more tiresome little t*****s forming bands? We must be at saturation point by now, surely? The title also suggests a cash-in on the current Baden Powell interest, while simultaneously seeming both pathetic and desperate. I suppose they formed a band to meet girls? Maybe they'll bog off when they've slept with some." – A Morton

"While I agree some of the album veers a bit too close to Ben Folds at times, it is an album of catchy tunes well played and produced. The lyrics are perfectly acceptable, being often wry and amusing and really what one should expect from a pop song. I have the album on the iPod and find myself often going to it to satisfy a craving for well-made pop. The fact that like them I had a passion for Michaela Strachan some years (I am six years older than the minx so it was perfectly reasonable) amuses me too. Arctic Monkeys, Scouting etc we need more bright, shiny,intelligent albums like these." - Nick Harman

"This is a very poor review, which shows little balance. The reviewer comes across as very childish and, to be quite honest, pathetic ." - Ben Johansson

"This is the best review ever written." - Jon B

"I'd like to see the reviewer do better. Scouting for Girls are an amazing band, not only lyrically, but in other ways too. You can tell that they love what they do and they write about what they want and what they are interested in, not just the same old stuff. The reviewers' reasons for the band being bad were plain useless, one was an opinion and the rest were unrelated and childish. Don't quit your day job." - Charlotte D

"Whoever wrote that review should seriously look into getting a new job, because they obviously do not know what they are talking about. Scouting For Girls are a fantastic band and you don't need to have sophisticated lyrics to make a great pop song. Ever thought you might just be jealous because they are making songs and you're just reviewing them?" - Chloe C

"Chloe, please do us all a favour and remove yourself from the gene pool. for definitions of "gene" and "pool" please see Google." - Always Right

"THE BEST REVIEW EVER!!!!!!

I can't stand Scouting For Girls...and this is exactly how I feel about them." - Haydn C

"Also if you've had the misfortune to see them live, all their songs sound the same. Still there a lot worse bands out there, but this is more like teenage pop." - James Bush

"This should be the Wikipedia entry for Scouting For Girls. With particular emphasis on time wasted when one could be playing with Lego." - Money Stirling

"I think Scouting for Girls are awesome! I think people who don't like them obviously have nothing that relates them to the songs, Scouting for Girls are indiviual and I can quite easily recognise their songs and it always makes me smile!" - Josh Hayward

"Whoever wrote this review obviously has no taste at all. I think they're great and I'm not saying that everyone should agree with me but they deserve a lot mor erespect than you gave them." - Charlotte B