NU, "Any Other Girl" (2003)

"Come on baby show it, come on baby show it/Come in and meet the boys, get down and see the toys/But I don't wanna feel like, I don't wanna feel like/Any other girl, any other girl." I guess what these lines lack in coherence, it makes up for in emphasis, given the way vocalist Stine Jacobsen says everything twice. She doesn't want to be, she doesn't want to be, any other girl, any other girl. You know, you know?

A Danish electrorock band, NU in 2003 was poised to achieve great things, even with their ungoogleable name. They released a memorable single, the insistent "Any Other Girl," and even placed it on the American Wedding soundtrack. An entire album, AlphaBravoShockpopDisco!, followed -- and it boasted an eye-catching sleeve, something akin to the female version of Fischerspooner's #1 from the year before. Then...nothing. The movie tanked, the album didn't do anything noteworthy, so much so that the group seemed to have disbanded shortly after (their website is certainly no longer extant).

Perhaps timing is everything. NU's brand of female-fronted electrorock would have made them fit nicely nowadays among the Stefys and the Rogue Traders of the world, whereas in 2003 only Garbage, whose sound was deemed tired by then, served as a point of comparison. Maybe Stine (and company) should have waited a couple of years to be just like any other girl. Of course, the problem is that she would now be, well, like any other girl. Should I say that again?