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[Lazarus]

As the old joke goes, Fred Astaire was a great dancer, but Ginger Rogers did everything he did?backwards and in high heels. Similarly, when it comes to pop music, women have often had to fight twice as hard and be twice as savvy as men to triumph in an industry eager to minimize them.

This is especially clear in the history of girl groups, which has offered a reflection of women?s evolving autonomy in America across the last 60 years. Borne of the late-?50s doo-wop scene, with a smattering of gospel and proto-rock R&B thrown in for good measure, girl groups fully developed as a radio phenomenon in the early ?60s. Young women formed their own singing ensembles or were recruited by producers, marking some of the first instances of female artists making mainstream music in America. Even more significantly, many of these groups had women of color taking starring roles: Acts like the Crystals, the Marvelettes, and the Shirelles scored Billboard hits with their innocent, harmony-heavy tales of young love.

Though some of these enterprising young women wrote their own songs, most were penned by powerhouse pro songwriters and directed by male producers to reflect their visions. Still, the singers? charm and exuberance was impossible to fake. Groups like the Ronettes, the Supremes, and the Shangri-Las carved their fame through emotive hooks, dramatic instrumentation, trendy styling, and party-ready choreography, inspiring many in the nascent rock?n?roll scene along the way. In the ?70s, the genre?s church-bred roots got to shine, with disco and gospel soul dominating the dancefloors, and dynamic women like the Pointer Sisters and Labelle bringing their pipes to pop. The style fell out of fashion in the ?80s, for the most part, with one or two interesting exceptions (enter: the temporary girl group svengali Prince).

In the ?90s, girl groups saw both a renewal and an upheaval of many of the style?s conventions. TLC burst onto the scene singing about safe sex, body image, and the cycle of poverty; they brought rapping into the fold and showed their distinct, assertive personalities. The Spice Girls used their infectious camaraderie to shout girl power from the rooftops, and Destiny?s Child brought steel spines to their cries for equality and financial independence. Today, we see a resurgence of girl groups in South Korea, where the ever-expanding K-Pop phenomenon is beginning to challenge how gender roles and androgyny fit into this music.

In deciding which artists to include in this list, Pitchfork editors first had to pin down our definition of a ?girl group.? Ultimately, we agreed that an act must have three or more members, all members must be women, and they must record pop music with clear harmonies. To that point, they must be primarily known as vocal act; watching a group sing and dance in sync is different than watching a band play instruments onstage (sorry, the Go-Gos!). And since the 7-inch 45 rpm record was so integral to the girl group boom of the ?60s, we decided to pay homage to them by selecting 45 songs.

TLC
?Ain?t 2 Proud 2 Beg?
1991
It seemed like a done deal back in 1991. After a courtship in the early ?80s that oscillated between flirtation and competition, hip-hop and R&B had fully wed in the form of new jack swing, that wildly popular subgenre that yoked together all of the masculinist, braggadocio swagger of MCs with the bedroom crooning of classic soul Casanovas. On their best days, new jack joints mixed romance with house party euphoria (see: Guy?s bright, sweet-as-Lipton love jam ?I Like?). At their very worst, those maddeningly irresistible bangers turned up the heat on male paranoia and blatant misogyny while everyone was doing the running man (think: Bell Biv DeVoe?s still-ubiquitous ?Poison?).

TLC weren?t having any of it. With their savvy, head-turning debut single ?Ain?t 2 Proud 2 Beg,? the trio consisting of Tionne ?T-Boz? Watkins, Lisa ?Left Eye? Lopes, and Rozonda ?Chilli? Thomas subverted new jack swing and the girl group form in ways that spoke radically to fast-changing, black socio-cultural landscapes. Formed in Hotlanta with the help of industry vets like Jermaine Dupri, Perri ?Pebbles? Reid, and Antonio ?L.A.? Reid, the group cranked out an unlikely b-boy, red-siren alert about black female sexual assertiveness and shame-free desire at the height of the AIDS crisis. In that long moment of peril when black communities?and black women in particular?were the most vulnerable and most invisible victims of a taboo disease, TLC brought joy and candor to pop culture?s safe-sex discourse, brazenly declaring, ?If I need it in the morning or the middle of the night/I ain?t too proud to beg!? With a candy-colored hit video that featured all three members in street-smart, romper-stomper apparel affixed with condoms, they became the first girl group to combine sexual candor with unstoppable playfulness.

But the pure, still-unmatched genius of ?Ain?t 2 Proud 2 Beg? is its insistence on sounding out the multiplicity of voices and personas that a girl group could possibly contain. From Left Eye?s sly and mischievous trickster rapping to Chilli?s lush balladeering to T-Boz?s funk testifying, TLC insisted on showing the complexities of black women?s inner-life worlds?how those worlds are constituted by humor, sensuality, as well as the dead-serious aspiration for equality in the bedroom and well beyond it. ?Daphne A. Brooks

En Vogue
?Free Your Mind?
1992
In the midst of rap?s golden age, En Vogue were dreamed up by two male svengalis in Oakland who wanted to make a modern-classic girl group?one that could project black middle-class respectability, carry discernible sex appeal, and add a touch of hip-hop for credibility. The powerhouse lineup of trained singers-models-actresses that resulted?Terry Ellis, Maxine Jones, Dawn Robinson, and Cindy Herron-Braggs?rocketed up the charts with their first single, ?Hold On.? On their second album, Funky Divas, they perfected their early ?90s mix of black pop, rap, and new jack swing; then they added vocal pyrotechnics and girl group synchronicity and became one of the best-selling girl groups of all time.

Even among that album?s calculated eclecticism, ?Free Your Mind? is odd: It?s got a wailing guitar, a woodblock solo, sung-screamed lead vocals, and the group?s signature wall of harmonies. It connects ?90s black rock to girl groups? past and points to the edges of future alternative R&B; its lyrics lay out scenarios in which prejudice unfolds, and then pose rhetorical questions about how a woman of color can live her best life when most of the world condemns her actions. They command, ?Before you can read me/You?ve got to learn how to see me,? a slogan for the kind of feminist analysis the rest of us should have been doing all along. The mass appeal of sweet, upwardly mobile R&B divas taking the occasional turn in black feminist consciousness-raising was a powerful model?one that future groups, especially Destiny?s Child, would follow. ?Daphne Carr

TLC
?Waterfalls?
1994
Beneath its sunny veneer, TLC?s monster hit ?Waterfalls? carries a stern warning: ?Take care of yourself. You?re the only one who can.? The Atlanta girl group possessed a magnetism that could safely deliver humanist messages to Top 40 radio, and it didn?t hurt that ?Waterfalls? had one of the biggest hooks of the ?90s.

It?s rare that an upbeat pop hit directly instructs its listeners not to take risks, not to plunge into the unknown, but TLC knew that self-preservation could be as radical an act as any. In the mid-?90s, the AIDS crisis had not yet retreated into the rearview mirror; rather than ignore the epidemic, TLC explicitly promoted safer sex, singing about the tragedy that could follow carelessness. But ?Waterfalls? transcends its cultural moment because its message is bigger than the political concerns of its era. TLC knew that ambition doesn?t have to come at the cost of self-

Total
?Can?t You See? [ft. The Notorious B.I.G.]
1995
Total were Bad Boy Records? effort at getting into the girl group game. Puff Daddy, ever the visionary, knew exactly what he was doing in signing Keisha Spivey, Kima Raynor, and Pamela Long: The video for ?Can?t You See,? the trio?s debut single, begins with a missive that ?beside every Bad Boy, there?s a Bad Girl.? By 1995, Total had already sung the hook for Biggie?s ?Juicy,? so they were already a known quantity for their creamy vocals.

?Can?t You See,? however, showed Total for who they would become: sleek, sophisticated, sexy, and definitively of the city, the ride-or-die babes who were just yearning for their man to come home. Their sophisticated vocals were never too flashy or frivolous with the melisma; ?Can?t You See,? in particular, is almost minimal, its harmonies riding along in minor key rather than shooting off the fireworks that defined the late ?80s and early ?90s. These ?Bad Girls? ushered in a new kind of cool, and were instrumental in helping Bad Boy conquer every corner of rap and R&B. ?Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

SWV
?You?re the One?
1996
New York?s SWV were already a successful R&B group before ?You?re the One,? but this song took them to the top. The song's breezy, sticky hook was completely engineered for the radio, down to the filtered intro, the brittle thwack of a snare, and the warm crackle throughout. But what ?You?re the One? really did for pop radio was pivot the prevailing sound even closer to rap, helping pioneer the lucrative template of girl groups flirting with the genre. The women of SWV?Cheryl ?Coko? Gamble, Leanne ?Lelee? Lyons, and Tamara ?Taj? Johnson?bridged the gap between R&B and hip-hop, first through their association with new jack swing and, later, in collaborations with rappers and producers like the Neptunes and Missy Elliott. ?You?re the One? truly embodies the limitless potential of that musical transition: celestial three-part harmonies over a loop that knocks. ?Anupa Mistry

TLC
?No Scrubs?
1999
By the time ?No Scrubs? was released, TLC had already taught us how to have a good time and respect our bodies in love. ?No Scrubs??the lead single from their futurism-inspired third album, FanMail?was another reminder to never concede to be the sole laborer in a relationship. But T-Boz, Chilli, and Left Eye also did something even more important and forward-thinking with this track: They called out all the goofy catcallers, two-timers, and irresponsible men who nevertheless feel entitled to women?s attention and affection.

Within the same year, Destiny?s Child would also release ?Bug A Boo? and ?Bills, Bills, Bills??all three songs written by She?kspere and Xscape?s Kandi Burruss?and this echo chamber of young, talented women taking no shit had dudes mad. (Mad enough, in fact, to fuel a petulant one-hit wonder response, ?No Pigeons,? by the New York rappers Sporty Thievz.) The rub? TLC changed the consciousness of a generation of young women. Somewhere, ?No Scrubs? is playing and some man is still sputtering with rage. ?Anupa Mistry

Destiny?s Child
?Bills, Bills, Bills?
1999
Destiny?s Child came from the girl group tradition: They studied Supremes videos as kids, wore coordinating outfits, and harmonized beautifully. Yet despite the well-mannered Christian image that they?d scrupulously built up in their earliest years, their first global hit, ?Bills, Bills, Bills? (from The Writing?s on the Wall), was a gloves-off line in the sand. Beyonc? Knowles and Kelly Rowland sound so tough and shrewd on the verses, like private detectives uncovering the many ways this scrub is taking more than he deserves: using their car and not filling up the tank, making long distance calls on their phone, basically stealing their money. With LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson on the chorus, ?Bills, Bills, Bills? is a hard, halting stop-hand in that guy?s face. It seems to acknowledge the extra labor?in the lyrics, her bills are really his expenses?that women are constantly called upon to deliver.

?Bills, Bills, Bills? was meant to be a call for equity in relationships, but Beyonc? felt the narrative didn?t quite land: ?That song was misunderstood,? she told the Observer in 2003. ?The chorus is so big that people didn?t hear those words [on the verses]?they thought we were being gold-diggers. That frustrated me.? Beyonc? wrote ?Independent Women, Pt. 1,? off 2001?s Survivor, to spell her point out clearer (?always 50-50 in relationships?). ?Bills, Bills, Bills? was the genesis of Destiny?s Child and and Beyonc??s revolutionary themes of female empowerment, and it was fun as hell. In 2014, Beyonc? lit up ?FEMINIST? on the big screen; ?Bills, Bills, Bills? was the first spark. ?Jenn Pelly

702
?Where My Girls At??
1999
One of the few good things to be found on Twitter these days: Missy Elliott?s micro-oral histories of her own sprawling catalog. Earlier this year, she touched on ?Where My Girls At?,? the biggest hit from the quartet-turned-trio 702. Elliott had originally written and produced the track for TLC; when they passed, she immediately turned to this Las Vegas group, for whom she?d co-written ?Steelo? three years prior. ?I wanted it to be a main chick anthem 4 the side chicks,? she tweeted, a perfect distillation of its essence.

From the title, you?d imagine the song to be a galvanizing girl-power anthem; instead, you?ve got Kameelah Williams snarling a warning to an interloper trying to take her man: ?Don?t you violate me/?Cause I?ma make you hate me.? The slope from ladies? dance instructional to ?Bitch, I will fuck you up!? is brilliantly imperceptible. And at the helm of all of it is Elliott, whose anxious beats and syrupy vocal harmonies reinforced the hard/soft balance. Boring people will lament that the future they were promised included hoverboards; infinitely more disappointing is th

Destiny?s Child
?Bootylicious?
2001
In 2001, as Destiny?s Child settled into its classic Beyonc?-Kelly-Michelle lineup, they dropped their third album, Survivor, with three bold singles back-to-back. First came ?Independent Women, Pt. I,? the commercial smash that furthered their banner of financial autonomy; then ?Survivor,? a booming victory lap to quiet those pesky hiring-and-firing rumors; and, finally, ?Bootylicious,? the ?Edge of Seventeen?-sampling funk banger about loving your jelly like your name?s peanut butter. Out of these, ?Bootylicious? seemed the most frivolous upon release but, over time, the song has stood out as a turning point in body-positive pop.

Watching the ?Bootylicious? video now, all three Destiny?s members look slim, just like all but two of their dancers. But in this era that preceded Dove ?real beauty? ads and Kardashian body goals, when Jennifer Lopez and Beyonc? were considered ?curvy,? the mere association of hips and thighs with self-love was a revelation in mainstream (i.e., white) pop. Utilizing the intoxicating riff of Stevie Nicks? original song to build anticipation throughout the track, the trio?and Beyonc?, in particular?showed off their sexier sides and spread a beauty ideal more common among women of color. The world has since caught up somewhat to Destiny?s Child?s pro-thickness message, but never again has this been echoed in a girl group hit. Fittingly, given its unprecedented nature, ?Bootylicious? was also the last No. 1 hit by a girl group to date. ?Jillian Mapes

The list
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-story-of-girl-groups-in-45-songs/

[Young]

 

June's Diary
"All Of Us"
2018
Reviving what we loved about girl power and girl groups, June's Diary broke out onto the scene in 2016 with the hit BET series "Chasing Destiny". The song is about girl power, and female unity. Each singer, from the insanely talented quintet brings their own unique flavor and sound to the group's harmonies and vocals. Throughout the track "All Of Us" you hear wicked sick vocal tricks and riffs--it's what we love about them! Their vocal stylings are very reminiscent to that of the greats before them: Destiny's Child. SWV, and even the Supremes. They give us what music oh so badly needs in this day and age: vocal talent!

The group just released their debut EP "All Of Us" on June 30th 2018. If you're looking to get a revival on what made us fall in love with girl groups; you should definitely check it out. We can't wait to see what they come up with next. It seems as if they are "carrying the torch."

[Lazarus]

Young. 

[BAPHOMET.]

 

[MelMel]

June's Diary
"All Of Us"
2018
Reviving what we loved about girl power and girl groups, June's Diary broke out onto the scene in 2016 with the hit BET series "Chasing Destiny". The song is about girl power, and female unity. Each singer, from the insanely talented quintet brings their own unique flavor and sound to the group's harmonies and vocals. Throughout the track "All Of Us" you hear wicked sick vocal tricks and riffs--it's what we love about them! Their vocal stylings are very reminiscent to that of the greats before them: Destiny's Child. SWV, and even the Supremes. They give us what music oh so badly needs in this day and age: vocal talent!

The group just released their debut EP "All Of Us" on June 30th 2018. If you're looking to get a revival on what made us fall in love with girl groups; you should definitely check it out. We can't wait to see what they come up with next. It seems as if they are "carrying the torch."

not you making up your own

[Young]

Yawl see it

[Gilgamesh.]

I love this.

[BAPHOMET.]

The Story of Girl Groups

Acrush
?Action?
2017

[Lazarus]

I love this.

Me too. Great write-ups.

[fedswatchin]

Why did you only post the black girl groups

[FlowerBomb]

The Story of Girl Groups

Acrush
?Action?
2017

[BigDawg]

 

[Young]

Why did you only post the black girl groups

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[Lazarus]

Why did you only post the black girl groups

Because those are the ones that this board are familiar with. Are you familiar with The Andrew Sisters?

[Cowboy Nine]

June's Diary
"All Of Us"
2018
Reviving what we loved about girl power and girl groups, June's Diary broke out onto the scene in 2016 with the hit BET series "Chasing Destiny". The song is about girl power, and female unity. Each singer, from the insanely talented quintet brings their own unique flavor and sound to the group's harmonies and vocals. Throughout the track "All Of Us" you hear wicked sick vocal tricks and riffs--it's what we love about them! Their vocal stylings are very reminiscent to that of the greats before them: Destiny's Child. SWV, and even the Supremes. They give us what music oh so badly needs in this day and age: vocal talent!

The group just released their debut EP "All Of Us" on June 30th 2018. If you're looking to get a revival on what made us fall in love with girl groups; you should definitely check it out. We can't wait to see what they come up with next. It seems as if they are "carrying the torch."

not you making up your own

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