A tribute to Sarah Harding: noughties pop’s anarchic poster girl

As a Girls Aloud fan since their formation on prime time Saturday night TV in November 2002, it’s difficult to articulate just how much the band - and the unparalleled part Sarah Harding played in it - means to me.

Processing a celebrity death can be strange, to say the least. Expressing the grief you feel for somebody you didn’t know personally feels uncomfortable. Maybe even a little unhinged. Though Sarah touched so many it’s important to put any pride aside and pay respect.

Girls Aloud’s unmistakable brand of bolshy, bonkers pop music soundtracked so many milestones throughout my teens and twenties. No Good Advice encapsulated all my adolescent angst, brilliantly bottled-up into four guitar-laden minutes. Swinging London Town somewhat fuelled my ambition to forge a life in That There London one day. Love Is Pain helped me make some sense of my first heartbreak.

In a landscape of vanilla, albeit very nice Atomic Kitten covers, Girls Aloud threw pop off its axis; thanks largely to Sarah’s big mouth and distinct lack of media training.

They shouldn’t have worked. Everything about this manufactured group, in theory, should’ve followed the flash-in-the-pan template of Hear’Say’s sorry fate. But that iconic Sound of the Underground surf guitar followed by Sarah’s ‘disco dancing with the lights down low’ lyric truly disturbed the equilibrium and set the new precedent.

This band meant business, and a 21-year-old blonde lass was at its helm.

I firmly believe that the secret to a pop group’s success is simple; the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. Each member brings a unique ingredient the others probably can’t; try as they might. Together, this creates a gang of greatness. We saw it with the Spice Girls. Little Mix’s longevity confirms it.

Sarah Harding’s quality? Her unabashed zest for life and music, uniquely juxtaposed with a vulnerability so seldom seen in the world of celebrity. A vulnerability that could be all too easily taken advantage of; though that says far more of society than it does of Sarah.

Our constructed image of a star doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve. It isn’t a working class girl from Stockport likely suffering a bit of imposter syndrome in the big smoke. It has a superiority complex and it mustn’t compromise that shallow façade.

Any soul that should let that façade slip is the anomaly; open to critique and ridicule.

So many words since her passing have reduced Sarah to a two-dimensional tabloid caricature; redacted her legacy to the ‘party girl’ papped outside Nobu with some problems on her plate.

Not to say that wasn’t Sarah. Jesus, that was Sarah. But there was so much more.

Sarah’s star was multi-faceted. Who else could be pictured swigging from a bottle of scotch at the NME Awards one minute, only to perform a Christmas cover of Dee C. Lee on CD the next? Sell copies of both FHM and Smash Hits with such ease? Don a ball gown at the BRITs and a Barbour jacket back home?

Her artistic versatility was astounding, too. Her melancholic delivery of The Loving Kind was heartbreaking. Her grief-stricken Whole Lotta History verse all too relatable. Her raw tenacity in Sexy! No No No… and Something New a force to be reckoned with.

Sarah could do it all; ‘walking Primrose’ with such exquisite class and timelessness while giving us some booze-fuelled punk in Wake Me Up. The wealth of Girls Aloud’s catalogue akin to her complex character.

In the patriarchal world of pop music, Sarah Harding kept up with the best of them. She rode that mid-noughties indie wave with vigour; earning Girls Aloud the respect of ‘real’ (read: white male) musicians like Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay. Though real fans knew such industry acceptance held no weight to the girls. It was all a bit of a laugh, really.

I implore you to listen to Hoxton Heroes; Girls Aloud’s cheeky profile of the acid-taking, Reading Festival-playing, number-57-charting groups they were never deemed as ‘cool’ as. To me, that song is brimming with Sarah’s spirit.

The group’s 2009 BRIT Awards win perfectly encapsulated everything Sarah stood for. As her – by this point more polished and PR’d – bandmates accepted their Best British Single award with demure, straight-talking Sarah had other ideas.

“It’s about time,” she yelled; snatching the microphone from Kimberley Walsh and injecting her brand of rock ‘n’ roll into the otherwise-painfully-clinical proceedings.

This was proper, Spice Girls anarchy. The most memorable BRITs acceptance speech since Sporty Spice challenged Liam Gallagher to ‘come and ‘ave a go.’ If he thought he was ‘‘ard enough,’ of course.

An invite Liam sensibly declined. The fella wouldn’t have stood a chance.

The only speech to come anywhere close in recent years? Little Mix’s tribute to girl groups past; with Jade Thirlwall thanking Girls Aloud for their ‘incredible’ contribution to the pop industry.

Nadine was the powerhouse vocalist. Kimberley was the sensible one. Nicola was the shy girl-next-door-type. Cheryl was the one forced to the fore and given the ‘nation’s sweetheart’ sticker.

Sarah? She was the rebel. The unruly poster girl of early-noughties Britain with a heart of gold beneath the brash.

Rest in peace, Sarah. Pop has truly lost one of a kind.