As Coyle talks about her vital contributions to Girls Aloud, you become increasingly aware of an elephant in the room. When the band got together, Coyle was its Queen Bee, after all. You wonder if she ever entertained the idea that one of her band-mates would emerge like a butterfly from a chrysalis, become the darling of the press, and get the band's first solo No 1.
Or to use another single-sex band analogy, is Nadine Coyle the Gary Barlow to Cheryl Cole's Robbie Williams? "Oh no!" Coyle squeaks, suddenly cautious. For the first time today, she looks like she might lose control.
From Girls Aloud's debut album onwards, Coyle sang all the initial vocals in the studio, at the express wish of their producer, Brian Higgins of Xenomania. "From day one. Well, maybe not day one, but definitely week two. And that's how it worked from then onwards. The girls just left me to it." She nods. "And then they would come in and do their parts, and they would have their holidays."
And then GODryl swooped in and snatched a wildly successful solo career while NOdine sold like 5k copies of her terrible album
Even Better to Lie and Let's Get Down are bops.
