"Girls Aloud" Paperback / softback

Musicians who find fame on reality TV shows are supposed to provide a bit of entertainment and then fade away - they're not supposed to have three UK top 10 albums and more than ten UK top 10 singles.

Maybe someone forgot to tell Girls Aloud the rules. The band were put together in 2002 for a TV shoe called Popstars: The Rivals.

Cheryl Tweedy, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle, Kimberley Walsh and Sarah Harding were managed by the legendary Louis Walsh and their rivals were On True Voice.

They were the boys. And they were easily beaten by the girls, who crushed their offering with the Christmas No 1 smash 'Sound of the Underground'.

By the following summer, One True Voice had broken up and, much to the surprise of many sneering types in the music industry and the music press whose job it is to belittle 'manufactured' bands, Girls Aloud were jailed as a proper group with the critical and popular hit "No Good Advice".

Four and-a-half years on, they are still the best, with a succession of brilliant image changes and a clever development of their unique sound sealing their reputation as one of the greatest girl bands of all time.

But it hasn't always been straightforward for the quintet. There was extensive reporting of Cheryl Tweedy's conviction for assaulting a toilet attendant in a nightclub in January 2003, but after the singer apologised, the band came back better than ever.

They have since has a documentary series made about the and they are rarely out of the papers, with personal lives as colourful and glamorous as anything they come up with on stage.

Now read their full story!!