The girl band is in crisis. As Little Mix go on their hiatus and tie up their Confetti tour, touted as their last shows “for now”, the UK finds itself without a major girl band for the first time in nearly 30 years.
It is a bleak prospect, as girl bands have often acted as agitators in the UK’s male-dominated music scene. Spice Girls are the most obvious example of this, arriving in 1996 amid lad-heavy Britpop, but groups in their wake have similarly disrupted the status quo: Girls Aloud’s rambunctiousness cut through the mid-00s indie explosion; All Saints and Sugababes offered sophistication instead of bubblegum Europop; and Mis-Teeq brought bold sexuality to UK garage.
