Apparently Scouting For Girls are the second biggest selling British band of 2008. How this has happened I do not know. Scouting For Girls make music that is so sickeningly poppy you want to put your fingers in your ears and scream ‘la la la la la’ at the top of your lungs until it's over. Is ‘I Wish I Was James Bond’ an exception? Well the title of the song should be enough to tell you that no, it is certainly not by any means.

A funky little piece of piano kicks things off, but after just 11 seconds the cringe fest begins: “007”, says a quintessentially English voice, “Britain’s finest secret agent, license to kill, mixing business with girls and thrills”. Then in comes lead singer Roy Stride with his try-hard vocal delivery and irritatingly predictable lyrics. Scouting For Girls write songs like an 8-year-old would write a poem, actually that might even be an insult to an 8-year-old...

“I wish I was James Bond, just for the day. Kissing all the girls, blow the bad guys away.”, chirps cutesy Roy, emphasizing his oh-so-clever rhyming couplets. What is so ridiculously frustrating about 'I Wish I Was James Bond', and indeed Scouting For Girls' other cheese ridden delights, is it’s ability to worm its way into your head and refuse to budge for hours on end. And that is not a complement.

OK, so 'I Wish I Was James Bond' is catchy, I’ll give Scouting For Girls that but the single seems to borrow melodies from every other song Scouting For Girls have ever released. 'I Wish I Was James Bond' is samey, predictable, bland indie-pop and it sounds like something from a Disney film. I’m surprised the video doesn’t have sing-a-long lyrics running at the bottom of the screen; altogether now everyone “Roger and Shaun and Timmy and George and Daniel and Pierce and maybe one day me...”. Yes, that really is how it ends. Enough said I think.

http://www.myspace.com/scoutingforgirls