I was casually stalking glancing through my Twitter feed this afternoon, when I saw a discussion between fellow bloggers (whom I adore) muumuse and xolondon about how both Little Boots and La Roux long player efforts don’t have a patch on Rachel Stevens‘ 2005 magnum opus, “Come & Get It”.

Can someone please call Rachel Stevens and tell her that electropop is selling again? Because whenever someone mentions the genre, I immediately think of Rachel first. Everything (bar the appalling title or the hideously organised tracklisting; believe me when I say my iTunes playlist for the record is leaps and bounds more appealing. Just saying…) was perfect about this record. People often complained that Rachel was a boring pop star, but at the end of the day she fronted some of the most instant electropop songs in the history of the genre and, quite possibly, may have either been a little too late for peoples wallets to enjoy it, or so way ahead of her time she should have sat on it until 2009.

Pitting “Come & Get It” up against Little Boots’ “Hands” or La Roux’s, er, “La Roux”, the outcome is a no-brainer. Rachel’s record still sounds freshly squeezed, and more than 70% of the albums tracks would make excellent radio hits in 2009. It’s interesting that “Come & Get It” came from what I honestly think was pop music’s last truly golden year. Girls Aloud released “Chemistry”, Madonna released “Confessions”, Goldfrapp’s “Supernature”, Kate Bush’s “Aerial”, Imogen Heap, Paddy Wolf and Mark Owen also released genre defining records, and of course; Rachel. Madonna won’t be releasing any studio albums till at least 2010/2011, and as for Girls Aloud; well, this one year hiatus leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Luckily Imogen Heap has a release coming soon, but other than that; It is clear that Rachel Stevens needs to release something before the year is through. FOR POP MUSIC’S SAKE.

Two tracks in particular from the album which have always been solid favourites of mine (and, seemingly, quite timeless and more current than most of what’s out there at the moment) are “Some Girls” and “So Good.” The first, a Richard X production, I would probably say is in the top 5 pop songs of all time. The video clip is GHASTLY though and should be reshot for history’s sake. But the song; the absolute musical definition of amazing.

I always found it odd that the extended versions of both tracks (which are the far superior versions) were never made officially available commercially, so here are the MP3’s which you can obtain in a downloadable fashion.

Rachel Stevens – Some Girls (Richard X Extended Version)

Rachel Stevens – So Good (Extended Version)

I would also like to direct your attention to an amazing post over on the wondrous Popjustice from the height of Rachel-almost-mania, which talked about her amazing gloves from the “So Good” video clip.

LOOK, IF SOMEONE WOULD JUST GET RACHEL ON THE BLOODY BLOWER (hem hem) AND TELL HER THAT SHE IS, ESSENTIALLY, RESPONSIBLE FOR A TRULY ICONIC POP MUSIC VICTORY AND TRIUMPH IN 2009 SO I WOULDN’T HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT IT AGAIN, THAT’D BE REALLY GREAT. FORGET THE FUCKING ACTING CAREER WOMAN, NO ONE IS INTERESTED. JUST MAKES SOME BLOODY POP MUSIC AND KEEP US HAPPY.

In short (and in true 2005 blog fashion), let’s take a look at a summary of this post:

> “Come & Get It” is better than almost every album released so far in 2009.
> Or most years since 2005.
> Rachel had amazing gloves.
> Downloading music is risky, but really great.
> muumuse and xolondon are very good bloggers.
> Gloves.