The Demise of Monrose

Shame really. Another one bites the dust. Monrose had some major hot music on their albums. And that's the thing that probably led to their demise. They had great music that found itself wasting away on each and every album they released. Formed via the Popstars format in Germany, Monrose launched themselves with the stunning ballad Shame (which was simply a cover of Clea's The Lie). They had success with Shame and somehow got stuck in a fix thinking all their covers should be medium-paced pop songs or dreary ballads. This was a major contributing factor to the girlband's dwindling album sales (their last album Ladylike made a quick appearance in the top ten at no.10 and then vanished). Each of their four albums included material that, if picked as singles, could have kept those sales up.

On their debut we saw the release of Even Heaven Cries over 2 Of A Kind (written by Gary Barlow) and Push Up On Me. The second album started off well with Hot Summer but things went downhill when the admirable but nevertheless lacking songs Strictly Physical and What You Don't Know over the utterly amazing Dangerous, Golden, Rebound, Sooner or Later, Just Like That and of course Monrose Theme. Their third album I Am was a great collection of tracks but the singles were all wrong. I'd have gone for You Can Look, Certified, Tip Toe and No Never. The fourth and final album is their lowest selling album to date and it's pretty much devoid of great songs. Though I loved This Is Me, I think Catwalk V-o-g-u-e would have, as lead single, secured their future. Superstar DJ was another the band/record company wasted.



As such, Monrose have emerged as a band who, in their lifespan, recorded amazing pop songs but you'll have to find them on the albums not their impending collection The Songs Of Monrose (aptly titled as the band rarely had hits you could describe as the greatest). They've become the band of what-if's and lost chances. In a time when the pop act is judged on the pop song, I can't get my head around the constant willingness to give fans something they really didn't want: mediocre mid-tempo r'n'b ballads. Their biggest hit was their number one Hot Summer yet everything since was anything but hot or for the summer.

Considering the arrival of other girlbands who naturally took attention away from Monrose and the success of GaGa one may have expected Monrose to release the right songs from their albums yet time and time again they picked sweet and boring ballads that refused to keep up with their chart contemporaries.

Monrose, here's to you...the band of could haves and maybes

DontstopThePop Alternative Greatest Hits of Monrose

1. Shame
2. 2 Of A Kind
3. Push Up On Me
4. Hot Summer
5. Rebound
6. Sooner or Later
7. Monrose Theme
8. Golden
9. You Can Look
10. Hit N Run
11. Certified
12. Tip Toe
13. Catwalk V-o-g-u-e
14. Superstar DJ
15. This Is Me
16. Scream
17. Say Yes
18. After Making Love
19. We Love
    

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