A Gap in Western Girl Groups
/Throughout history, girl groups have had a strong presence in the world of music in the west. Whichever decade you inspect, there had always been at least a handful of girl groups capturing public attention at a time. The debate on who is or was the most popular group typically fluctuated depending on the year. However, if you ask anyone now who the greatest western girl groups are nowadays, they’d probably still tell you about groups from the 50s or 60s, and the 80s-2000s. In particular, groups I see mentioned the most are The Supremes, Destiny’s Child, TLC, and Spice Girls. When it comes to the late 2000s and the entirety of the 2010s, there’s only really two groups that the majority of people seem to mention.
Little Mix
“Little Mix at the confetti tour in Leeds” (april 30, 2022) courtesy of wikimedia, by Katlyn Amelia
Little Mix was formed in 2011 on the UK version of the show The X Factor. Being the first group to win the show, Little Mix found immediate success in Europe. Since their debut the group has had 5 of their singles hit number 1 on the UK charts. Though they never charted quite as high in North America, the group was still able to form a health fan base here. In 2020, the group recorded and released Confetti, the final album featuring all 4 girls. Following that, Jesy Nelson would depart from Little Mix in the same year. Despite her departure, Little Mix went on a successful album tour in 2022. It will be their last for an indefinite amount of time though. Wrapping the tour, Little Mix decided to go on hiatus and have not released new music since 2020 and have only put out an album of greatest hits in 2021.
Fifth Harmony
“Fifth Harmony perform at the los angeles county fair” (Sep 15, 2017) courtesy of flickr, by aitchisons
Fifth harmony was a group formed in 2012 on the US version of The X Factor. Although they did not win the show, they had massive success in their run from 2012-2018. Fifth Harmony charted consistently throughout their career together and made equally consistent sales. Plenty of their songs were platinum certified as well as 2 out of their 3 albums. The group lost member Camila Cabello in 2016, and despite their prior success they would only continue to last as a group until 2018.
Currently, there’s a lot of room for new girl groups to find success and popularity in the west. So where are they? I’ve seen plenty girl groups forming and getting their start on social media in recent years, and while they’ve been able to gain some attention it seems no one has been able to break out quite yet. I’ve seen people around the internet say that there just isn’t any interest in girl groups right now, but I don’t really believe that. South Korean based girl groups such as Blackpink and Twice have had a great year not only in the west but the whole world. Blackpink recently wrapped their highly successful “Born Pink” tour which included 66 shows taking place in 22 countries. They even headlined the popular US music festival, Coachella, becoming the first girl group to ever do so. Twice is currently still on their “Ready to Be” tour which began in April of 2023 and will now continue into 2024 due to adding of more shows. Before their tour even began, Twice performed at the Billboard’s Women in Music 2023 event and accepted the award for Breakthrough Artist.
With the popularity of these girl groups in the west, I’m hoping that means we’ll be seeing even more who will leave their mark on music. With that being said, here is a girl group that I’ve personally been really invested in lately!
FLO
“FLO at the flo live tour in manchester” (April 3, 2023) courtesy of wikimedia, by Emma Houghton
FLO is a UK based R&B/pop group formed in 2019. The group consists of 3 members: Jorja, Stella, and Renée. The trio currently doesn’t have any albums out, but they have a couple of singles and EP releases. Their most recent EP, 3 of Us, released on July 7th of 2023 and it has 4 songs on it. I’ve been loving all of them but my favourite off this EP has to be “Control Freak”. If you’re as into girl groups as I am, I hope you’ll give them a listen! In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for more groups.
Hey, I’m Dayton! Currently, I’m a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. I’m in my second year now, and one of the biggest things that powered me through my first year was probably music. What can you expect to find in my music library? A bit of everything, and yes, that includes country. I’m a huge fan of all kinds of music and I’m always on the lookout for new songs to add to my collection. I hope you enjoy the blog :)
