The Promise

Album: Out of Control (2008)
Charted: 1
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was written and produced by the Xenomania production team, who have been responsible for most of Girls Aloud's hits.
  • When the girls debuted this '60s-tinged Pop number on the X-Factor Results show, their sloppy and off-key performance was criticized by many. However this didn't stop the quintet entering the UK charts at #1 giving them their 4th chart-topper and their first with an original song since their 2002 debut hit "Sound Of The Underground." Its weekly sales of 77,109 copies was the highest of any #1 single in 2008 at that point, beating the previous top tally of 72,724, achieved by Duffy's "Mercy" 34 weeks previously.
  • Girl Aloud Sarah Harding said of this song to MTV UK: "I like the '60s vibe and the retro thing is coming back! We wanted to stay upbeat but try something a bit different and advanced. I don't think anything we've ever done has ever sounded the same. But we have that same vibe whatever we do because of our vocals."
  • The British public voted for this as the 'Best British Single' at the 2009 BRIT Awards.
  • In the Trudy Bellinger directed music video, Girls Aloud are at a '50s and '60s drive-in movie theatre, which is showing a black-and-white film of the group performing this song. Bellinger told The Independent March 12, 2010 about the clip: "As soon as I heard the Girls Aloud track 'The Promise,' I thought it had the feel of old '60s films. I knew that I wanted to embrace that and that the girls would really be able to pull it off. Even though I included a section at a drive-in, I wanted to keep it British because the girls are intrinsically British. We based shots on iconic females, like Twiggy, from that time."

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