The late ’90s were a wild time. Bubblegum pop had been birthed, baggy jeans were in fashion, and the hardest decision of your life revolved around choosing between a Backstreet Boys or a Spice Girls doll at your local Toys’R’Us.
Since then, the boy-band and the girl-group have not only evolved, they’ve thrived. We’ve seen K-POP come and dominate our senses with their infectious videos embedded with virality.
BROCKHAMPTON have rebranded the “boy-band” to be more inclusive of PoC members, queer members and other sonic influences. And girl-groups have branched out to the alternative music scene with HAIM at the forefront. But what made this golden age of pop-groups quintessentially golden, has since been forgotten. Yes, we’re talking about mix-gendered pop groups.
Mix-gendered pop groups were incredible. They ripped apart traditional, gendered stereotypes and promoted equality for kids. Suddenly, from action figures and domesticated dolls, we had boys and girls co-existing, playing with puppies together, dancing around the CBD together, even quad-biking together.
5,6,7,8 walked so that Hoedown Throwdown could run.
The nexus of this energy is embodied by the incomparable, S Club 7. The singing, dancing, acting ‘Britpack’ was something never-before-seen in pop culture. They pumped out timeless bangers, a BBC television series (Miami 7) and merchandise we could only dream of owning. And while they now go by S Club 3, their legacy is probably best seen in the marketable pop-groups that dabble in television, such as Liberty X & Scandal’Us, both coming out of Popstars.
But, aside from the positive messaging and TV entertainment, the songs were incredible too. We honestly wouldn’t have David Guetta and Calvin Harris without the infectious euro-dance pop that The Vengaboys and AQUA gave us. Not to mention the Black Eyed Peas, who normalised pop-rap, so that your favourite artists could exist today!
So, with all this in mind, why the hell don’t we have mix-gender groups? I mean, they’re fairly existent in the alternative music scene but, you don’t need me to tell you that. Considering they’ve been so successful in the past, their absence in 2019 is deafening.
Since this golden age, we’ve seen a retreat to masculinity and femininity as a locus for these pop-groups, but with a new lens. Boy-bands like One Direction have redefined masculinity in favour for a less toxic one and girl-groups like BLACKPINK have taken the independent-women–girl-power mantra to a whole new level.
So are mix-gender pop groups no longer marketable? We hope not. All I’m saying is, the best band of all time, ABBA, was a mix-gendered group, and no one has made better music than them.