"Untouchable" is the twenty first
single by British pop group Girls Aloud, and the
third single to be taken from their fifth studio
album, Out Of Control. The song is to be released
on 27 April 2009
The song is Girls
Aloud's longest yet, at a full runtime of 6:45.
Sarah Harding described the song as "so Nineties, a
proper pop dance song. It’s got that trancy, chilled
Ibiza feel. I get lost in the music at the
beginning and then it builds and builds and builds.
You just want to go mental." "Untouchable" was
selected as the third single from Out of Control
after it fared best in a fan poll on Girls Aloud's
official forum. It was announced as the single on 20
February 2009. The first performance of the song occured at the Dancing on Ice semi-finals. Girls
Aloud entered on wires suspended from the ceiling
(similar to the entrance from their Tangled Up
Tour), and performed the song whilst ice dancers
Torvill and Dean skated around them.
"Untouchable" received generally favourable reviews
from critics. The song was referred to as "fast,
electronic and fantastic" with an immense build-up
to the chorus by Popjustice. It was praised by NME, described as "post-Ibiza power-balladeering".
"Untouchable" was hailed as "one of the classiest
and most ambitious pop songs of the year."
However, MSN said "the plodding disco track falls
short
The music video for "Untouchable" was directed by Marco
Puig with post-production from The Mill. Shot in
a west London studio on 18 March 2009, the filming
took sixteen hours. Pictures of Girls Aloud in
their "skimpy rubber" outfits for the music video
were published in tabloid newspapers on 25 March
2009. The video premiered on 25 March 2009
on 4music at 7:00pm GMT and was shown again at
11:05pm on Channel 4. The "Untouchable" video
was made available on MSN the following day.
The futuristic video was inspired by Stanley
Kubrick's classic science fiction film 2001: A Space
Odyssey. Girls Aloud appear in "sci-fi inspired
PVC leotards", travelling through space and
approaching Earth in illuminated glass spheres
(resembling meteorites). After the second verse, the
words 'Alert: Condition Red' appear on the screen
and the girls have trouble in their bubble-like
orbs. They begin to plummet through Earth's
atmosphere, with the spheres erupting in flames.
Still burning, they pass an aeroplane and approach a
city. The video ends with televisions showing the
'breaking news' as they hit the ground, with a
reporter describing it as a "meteor shower". The
outcome of Girls Aloud is unknown, due to static
waves breaking up the picture following the impact.
Digital Spy lauded the "Untouchable" music video as
"almost as exciting as the song itself
