Girls Aloud made their stage return last night on Children In Need, and we can’t be happier about the girls getting back together.
With Cheryl, Nicola, Kimberly, Sarah and Nadine joining together again (if only for a short time) it could just be the shot in the arm that the girl-band genre needs to reach the heights it once hit repeatedly.
Ever since Girl Aloud split up, it’s been a fairly barren time for the Girl Group. The Sugababes plodded on and The Saturdays took up the mantle of the premier offering, but it was nothing compared to the massive influx caused by The Spice Girls.
For a while, you couldn’t move without hitting a girl band. Be it Destiny Child, All Saints or B*Witched, the charts we filled with female ensembles singing sunshine filled pop.
Can the re-forming of Girls Aloud spark the girl-group scene into life, or will it be Little Mix or Stooshe that kick start the metaphorical engine? Or is the entire concept on that will forever be relegated to nostalgia and never grip again.
If we’re to take the example of the boy-band, it makes for encouraging reading, as that genre was even deader than the girl band before Gary Barlow took the situation into his own hands and brought back Take That.
Think about any genre of musician. Is there ever really just one on their own? Nope, there’s always a group that appears.
It happened with boy bands in the early nineties and girl groups at the end of the decade, it happened with the wave to pop-rock groups in the noughties and it’s happening with the current crop of singer songwriters. There is always a trailblazer and then a group.
Without the re-emergence of Take That, we wouldn’t have The Wanted, JLS or One Direction. Without Adele, we wouldn’t have Florence Welch or Emeli Sande. Without one name making sure that the formula works, no one else is given the time of day, even if they have the talent to make it.
The trouble for this instance though is that Girls Aloud aren’t reforming full time. If we had a new, original album coming out bearing their name, then it might be enough to give the emerging acts the boost they need to take on the mantle and lead a bright new era of girl bands.
The push might even come from someone new who bursts on to the scene, but for now, it looks like the responsibility for bringing back the medium falls on the shoulders of The Saturdays, Little Mix and Stooshe. Good luck girls, because it’s going to take something really big to bring this back to life.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith