Girlbands Forever review – a thrillingly gobby slice of must-watch TV

As a pop-cultural moment, the turn-of-the-millennium girl group boom hasn’t exactly been flooded with solemn appraisal and analysis. Wisely, this fantastically entertaining three-part documentary doesn’t attempt to rectify that. Instead, Girlbands Forever reminisces in a manner that is equal parts meaty and frothy. And, yes, often about as stomach-churning as that combination sounds. At the heart of this series – the female-focused follow-up to 2024’s Boybands Forever – is a lot of old ground. Viewers of a certain age will know the trajectories retraced here (the head-spinning arrival of Spice Girls, the scrappy ascent of Atomic Kitten, the existentially challenging lineup rotation of Sugababes, the talent-show conception of Little Mix) and the dominant themes (tabloid hell, merciless management, relentless touring, intraband resentments) like the backs of their faintly wrinkled hands. Yet via a combination of telling details, ancient-yet-still-juicy gossip, offbeat archive footage, gratifyingly frank interviewees and hearteningly little narrative hand-holding – a style recalling James Bluemel’s far more profound but similarly zingy Once Upon a Time documentary strand – Girlbands Forever offers the angles that can transform familiar subject matter into must-watch TV. Episode one is the best, largely thanks to the funny and candid contributions of All Saints’ Melanie Blatt (or, in her words, “Mel from the 1990s”). We kick off with the annus horribilis of 1992, whose Black Wednesday wretchedness was apparently alleviated by a tranche of ultra-cool R&B girl groups from the US. Producer Ron Tom saw an opportunity for a British version – “a twinge of London, underground, edge” – in the teenage Blatt and her friend Shaznay Lewis. Meanwhile, EMI were cultivating gospel-vibed competitors Eternal. The latter had modest success, Lewis and Blatt didn’t. Both were unimpressed when the nonsense-strewn Wannabe stormed the charts in 1996 (Eternal’s Kéllé Bryan presumed it was a leaked demo) before girl power’s empty rallying cry lassoed the zeitgeist. Strangely, Spice Girls – immediately rewarded with the stardom that had eluded Blatt and Lewis – would be the making of All Saints, now with added Appleton sisters: the group’s smouldering, stylish trip-hop-adjacent R&B could be marketed as the hip, authentic alternative to Ginger and co’s cartoonish, generically rootless pop in a press-friendly Blur v Oasis-style rivalry. It was in this Cool Britannia bonfire that the tribulations of the modern British girl group would be forged: the intrusive press commentary, the person-as-product mentality of the music world (according to Bryan, bosses sent the band to a camp where they controlled what they ate – although the head of EMI UK at the time denies any knowledge of this) and the horrific treatment of members once they became pregnant. Blatt recalls a manager pressuring her to have an abortion; by the time Scary and Posh were also with child, broadcaster Robert Kilroy-Silk was seriously asking whether these twentysomething women were responsible for encouraging tween fans to become mothers. After this first wave of “unlikely musical disruptors” – as per the slightly over-egged voiceover – came the girlband landfill. All these outfits may have been manufactured to some extent, but the short-lived likes of Girl Thing and Vanilla proved you couldn’t just mindlessly run them off a production line. Enter Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s Andy McCluskey, who was looking for a second act after his synthpop heyday. He found it in a vivacious backing dancer called Kerry Katona and lo, Atomic Kitten was born. Related: Shaznay Lewis: ‘I asked my husband to describe me in three words. They were not printable’ The early 00s also birthed Mis-Teeq, who gifted the charts with UK garage-inflected pop. The raucously gobby Atomic Kitten were catnip for the era’s vicious gossip mags, leading Katona to leave the band once she thought she had found her happily ever after with Westlife’s Brian McFadden (a union she says sent both bands’ labels “absolutely fucking apeshit”). Mis-Teeq, three classy Black women, struggled to get much press coverage at all and were then – maddeningly – abandoned by the industry just after scoring a massive global hit with Scandalous. The final instalment is where the giddy nostalgia begins to peter out. In the late 00s, Sugababes’ lineup changes blurred the line between band and brand to a depressing extent, underlining that no matter how great the music was (even Atomic Kitten had their fair share of certified bangers), the girl-group industrial complex was a brutal, soulless, opportunistic business. Eventually, we reach the 2010s and Little Mix, scions of the talent-show-and-social-media era, who achieved the most success with the least appealing music. The coda acknowledges the recent All Saints and Sugababes reunions, while interviewees express misguided optimism about the future of the British girlband – totally ignoring the fact it is extinct. In light of this fascinating and righteously infuriating history of these young women’s woes, it may not be a loss we should necessarily mourn. • Girlbands Forever aired on BBC Two and is available on iPlayer.