Girlbands Forever: This shocking history of ’90s female pop is full of gossip, scandals — and crackers | television

gEarlbands, then. Glittering icons of empowerment or Pygmalion projects for middle-aged men in A&R? Here’s a radical idea – both. Two becomes one, my dear. That’s the feeling from Girlbands Forever (Saturday, 9:20 p.m., BBC Two), the Louis Theroux-produced documentary that charts the fortunes of 90s bands like All Saints, Eternal, Atomic Kitten, Mis-Teeq and even 2000s stars Little Mix. If this lineup speaks to your older millennial soul the way it speaks to mine, then board with caution. I need some nostalgia, as if I’ve never needed nostalgia before.

Of course we want gossip, repercussions and scandals. The band members interviewed in the three-part series are happy to introduce it. Eternal’s Kelle Bryan reveals they were sent to a facility in the countryside and put on controlled diets to control their weight (although the EMI UK boss denies all knowledge). Kerry Katona tells how a journalist arrived at her mother’s house with a bag of cocaine to get her to sell a story. Melanie Platt of All Saints says that when she found out she was pregnant, she was told to have an abortion.

Girlbands Forever could have been an exercise in satire: find out who’s desperate enough to want to be in this, and pull out their worst moments as viewers make assessments about which of them has the nicest house. Instead, it has sensitivity and scope, as it is interested in charting the social norms that these artists created, were crucified by, or were in some way altered.

I’m not sure things have improved. Once upon a time, attractive celebrities went out of their way to hide their relationships, to maintain the illusion of being sexually available. These days, we have exploded the concept of privacy, and relationships achieved on social media can be dismantled for the sake of concealment. progress! Black artists once worked five times harder to get 20% of the attention. imagine. The show is refreshingly unambiguous that the addition of a thin, blonde white woman could change the fortunes of the band. Although our popular culture lens is wide, it hardly points in a different direction.

It’s the old footage that breaks your heart. They are energetically gifted children. Look at Atomic Kitten meeting Westlife for the first time, all from their teenage flirtation. Check out the “steel and non-choreography” of the early and raw Sugababes. There are great shots of Mutya in a Michael Barrymore show, where she looks like a literal child. I’m glad the Doctor got into the Sugababes’ revolving door politics. One of the funniest things to happen in music this century, and also a vivid manifestation of the philosophical paradox of the Ship of Theseus. Let’s not get into that.

The Spice Girls are the Silverbacks of the ring, who came from nowhere and conquered the world with their debut single. There’s no merit here, but it’s interesting to hear from established artists who have stumbled in the wake of Jenny’s recent emergence. Some claim to be frustrated with Wannabe, while their five-point demographic appeal is presented as a marketing triumph. “Girl power? That was EMI power,” quips producer Pete Waterman.

The music industry has come out of this crisis poorly (although Piers Morgan has come out of it worse than anyone else). The recurring pattern we exhibit is that when female band members get pregnant, the sentence from the male management is the same: You’ve ruined the band. In this context, seeing Platt perform at Party in the Park with her abs on display, as sexy and defiant as ever, is a sea-changing vision. She was still the coolest person in the room, and she had reservations about showing up here at all. “Hi, I’m Mel from the 90s” is how she introduces herself. Oh, it’s dope.

Another recurring pattern: talented but frustrated girls break ties with their founder, Henry Higgins, and succeed in their own way. No matter how these teams started, what they become is up to them. Without always feeling empowered, they were the embodiment of it for younger generations. They represented the joy of being in a gang of girls, often working class, traveling the world and living a dream. The world needs this. Plus, you can’t go wrong with TV soundtracks of songs including Never Ever, Sounds of the Underground and Scandalous. You know what to do. Press the button.