A major girl group of the 90s was "The Spice Girls". With a total of over 65million records sold, they are the most succesful girl group ever and the most successful group since "The Beatles". There are many reasons why The Spice Girls were as successful as they were, with the main reasons being their style and look as a group. Every member of The Spice Girls dressed differently and had a unique stage name, "Scary Spice", "Baby Spice", "Posh Spice", "Sexy Spice" and "Sporty Spice". By having this The Spice Girls were enabling themselves to be more likeable, as every fan had their favourite. The band also attracted a lot of male attention, especially with some of their more revealing outfits.
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Another very popular girl group of the 90s were Destinys Child. They had been influenced greatly from bands such as "The Ronettes", following their uniform appearance and group choreography. They had one main singer and two backing singers. This can be found in many bands especially from the 60s such as, "The Ronnettes", The Supremes" and "The Three Degrees". En Vogue were another band which were heavily influenced, with the uniform appearance and group choreography, however they did not have a lead singer, but had a lot of harmonising and certain band members taking the lead roles for different parts of the song.
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Many of the girl groups of the 90s were making music about feminism and how women/girls can do things better than men. A major song illustrating this point was called "Girl Power" by a girl group called "Shampoo" in 1995. The song simply states how much better it is to be a girl then a boy, and how girls can do boys things too, with the opening lyrics as "I don't want to be a boy, I want to be a girl".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrtwI-k6swc
In agreement with this was the riot movement which consisted of underground punk girl groups such as, "Bikini Kill" and "Jack of Jill". Their songs would often contain lyrics addressing issues like female empowerment and sexuality. Writing songs about these issues was their way of getting their message across the world. In most songs they would put their points across quite aggressively just as the usual punk band would, with a "don't-care" attitude.
As well as being a very well known producer and manager, Phil Spector played an important role for the girl groups of the 90s. He was the recruiter of many famous girl groups of the 60s such as, "The Crystals", "The Ronnettes" and "The Blossoms", and was the pioneer of the 1960s girl group sound. Without him the girl groups of the 90s may not have existed in the way that they did.
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Many of the 90s girl bands have influenced the girl bands of today. The Spice Girls have undoubtedly influenced Girls Aloud, a fun sexy band consisting of five female singers, each with their own unique style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqFouvUbGpo
The 90s was a big time for girl bands, a whole lot of attitude and feminsim. The whole point in most of the girl bands in the 90s was to get the point across that girls are better than boys. However the actual musical content was very simple and repetative, with very repetative lyrics and a cheesy hook. The chord sequences were very simple along with a simple catchy melody, and a dancy rhythm.
The girl groups of the 90s were undoubtably both influencial and outstanding in the way they performed, having a vast potential for fans, they were always going to be successful. Some groups were more popular and successful for different reasons. I think certain groups like destiny's child and eternal could have been a lot bigger, however there were too many all girl groups alike them at the time. This is why the spice girls were so popular and successful, because they were different and unique. I think that the most powerful thing that the girl groups of the 90s had was their lyrics and hooks in their songs. Without the lyrics the song would sound very simple. Some songs such as "C'est la vie" from B*Witched contained a very catchy melody aswell as the predictable lyrics and cheesy hook.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSj0DZ0Vcm8
The 90s was a good time for Girl groups.
List of Information Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Power
http://www.girl-groups.com/
