When Girl Ray started out, three young women who became best friends at secondary school in Muswell Hill, they looked like another mussed-up indie band destined to scuff their guitars in front of a very minor following for a few years before giving in and getting proper jobs. Now, three albums in, squint and it’s just possible we could be looking at the new Bananarama.
As Netflix’s recent Wham! documentary has shown, back then it was highly possible for schoolmates who didn’t really know what they were doing to come a long way in pop music. There’s a charm to the early work of these Eighties pop groups that doesn’t come across in the more precisely manufactured singles of the later boy and girl bands.
