Successful boy bands and girl groups all have one thing in common: a quick rise to pop superstardom and an even faster drop to pop obscurity for most of the members of said groups. It takes drive and determination and most of all, you must be bloodthirsty in your ambition. But how long can you allow your success to be left in another person’s hands before ambition forces you to seek it on your own?
These manufactured groups are brought together for one goal and one goal only: to make cold hard cash in the pop arena where producers and managers find a formula that works and regurgitate it back to the starving public until they become sick of it. A prime example was the “girl power” experiment known as The Spice Girls, brought together in the U.K. to combat boy bands such as Take That (alum Robbie Williams falls into the rare club of former boy band members with successful solo careers) that had saturated the music scene there in the early 90’s. Brought together as the last girls left standing of a group of 400 girls who auditioned, Geri Halliwell, Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm along with the later addition of Emma Bunton would eventually go on to take the world by storm. Rechristened Ginger Spice (Halliwell), Posh Spice (Adams), Scary Spice (Brown), Sporty Spice (Chisholm) and Baby Spice (Bunton), The Spice Girls released their debut album, Spice, in 1996 and saw immediate, Beatle-level success right out of the box.
But taking a group of 5 women who have no real friendships or history between them is challenging and it wasn’t long before cracks began to show in the forced union. Not to mention the music they were recording was manufactured bubble gum pop meant to appeal to pre-pubescent teenaged girls: a fanbase as fickle as it gets. Geri Halliwell was the first to break away to pursue a solo career, leaving the group short their best vocalist. Egos clashed for a short while, but eventually the remaining members came to the realization they would be unable to recover from the loss of Halliwell. The group disbanded after releasing their final (and least successful) album, Forever. Their success, however, spanned 4 years and sales of over 90 million albums worldwide. Not to mention sales of merchandise and the SpiceWorld movie, the royalties and residuals would keep everyone involved in this experiment rich for years. Since then, only Sporty Spice, or Mel C, has had any sort of musical success. Melanie Brown has had a career revival since 2010 as a TV personality and judge on shows such as America’s Got Talent and X-Factor UK. Victoria Adams, now known as Victoria Beckham, has found huge success as a fashionista, a celebrity footballers wife, and as tabloid fodder. But let’s be honest, no one became a Spice Girls fan because they were such great singers. They were entertaining. But only as a group. And as far as a musical legacy? Well they didn’t really leave one.
When the Supremes were brought together, it was Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson who recruited a classmate by the name of Diana Ross to join a singing group they were putting together back in 1958. But it was Ms. Ross who would become known as THE Supreme (sorry Ms. Lange!). She was the prettiest but with a wispy voice. But pretty sells. So lets make her the center of attention and make the others her backup singers. By 1965, Berry Gordy was having an affair with the singer, creating tension within the entire roster of Motown artists. Eventually the group was renamed Diana Ross & The Supremes and Ballard fell into a deep depression and began drinking heavily leading to her departure from the group. Ms. Ballard would pass away of cardiac arrest in 1976 at the age of 32. Corporate greed and a horny music executive eventually did them in. But a legacy of great music was left in their wake.
Some would say that our modern day Supremes is Destiny’s Child, a group of girls that grew up together in Texas and loved to sing. Latavia, LeToya, Kelly and Beyonce all loved to sing and loved the spotlight. Beyonce’s father, Matthew Knowles took over managing the group and it was obvious how much his daughter was favored in the group. Having earned the title of lead vocalist for the group, it was clear that most of the time the other members of the group served more as backup singers than equal members of the group. Tensions were especially high after Latavia and LeToya were not included in the music video for Say My Name, a song they co-wrote and sang on. They were replaced without warning by Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin. Eventually Ms. Franklin would leave the group as well making the group a trio although they were more of duo as most of the time Ms. Williams was treated as an afterthought, even spawning a website called Poor Michelle with videos and images of all the times Michelle received the short end of the stick. One is left with the feeling though that the entire Destiny’s Child legacy was specifically meant as a launching pad for one girl’s dream, no matter the cost. Destiny’s Child would eventually end a long successful career and earn Kelly Rowland a successful solo career while making Beyonce a superstar, no doubt assisted by her union with rap mogul Jay Z. Oh and Michelle has that website.
Ultimately, these groups are money makers and puppets in a corporate machine. They aren’t created to nurture talent, or to create great music. Their singular purpose is to make money and if a few doors open along the way, so be it. But it takes tough as nails determination and blind ambition to make it work. And if a few toes get stepped on or a stiletto stabs someone in the back, that’s ok. The view from the top is such that you wouldn’t notice the wreck left behind.
