They were the darlings of the Brit Awards 2019. Following a controversial performance of “Woman Like Me” where Jesy nearly got her tuppence out on national telly, managing not to mis-step during the awkward-as-hell, but equally hilarious, interview with show host Jack Whitehall, and THEN going on to win the “Best Video” category, with the aforementioned song, they had a decent night.
The award could have been for “Best Hair” for all it mattered as this award was, essentially a fan vote, based on who could get the most hash tags on Twitter. It would seem the Mixers (the fans) are a devoted bunch of girls and gays.
So what happened to all those people who got off the bus between their biggest era to date, the “Glory Days” album campaign, and this, the “LM5″/leaving Simon Cowell phase?
In summer 2018, following another successful tour, Little Mix were the featured vocalists on Cheat Codes’ most recent hit “Only You”. Formulaic, plinky-plonky EDM-lite for the Capital Radio listener to lap up. Even that wasn’t enough to reach the top 10 in the UK. The last time the girls were linked to a single, unavailable on any album, was when they teamed up with CNCO for a revocalised version of the Latin American boyband’s record-breaking smash, “(Bailamos) Reggaeton Lento”. This song, released in the UK just 8 months prior, smashed into the top 5 and helped propel (a 4th edition of) the 4th Mix album, over the million sales barrier, something they’d not achieved before.
Go further back and, Little Mix could have been as musically credible as Girls Aloud once were when they were released from the X Factor(y), by unleashing songs which bucked the trend time and time again: “Wings” (UK #1 in 2012), “DNA” (UK top 3 hit), “Move” (UK top 3 smash in 2013). The first 2 albums, “DNA” and “Salute” weren’t particularly big sellers- they sold well, don’t get me wrong, about 1 million globally between the pair of them. The music was well crafted as well as the injection British pop needed in the first half of this decade.
Rather than continue down the precarious route of music snobbery and turning into the NME’s bum chums, someone saved the group from Simon’s free-swinging axe, by giving them “Black Magic”. The song was the soundtrack to the summer of 2015 even though it had more than a whiff of 80s throwback to it. Being so backward-thinking was a pretty radical move. This song helped turn the group from fair-to-middling chart touchers to ring-shitters round every girl group since the Spice Girls 15 years before them.
2016 and 2017 saw Little Mix become Simon Cowell’s biggest act at the time and with it came a deluge of singles featuring tagged-on rent-a-rappers including Machine Gun Kelly, Stormzy and Kid Ink. Was this Syco’s attempt to break the group into the American market after the almost-but-not-quite attempt a few years before? Well, it didn’t work and the Mixers started to get a bit fed up of it. The Twitterati began to question whether the group would ever release a single on their own again?
So when “Only You” was the first new single in a while, there was a lot of anticipation. What a disappointment it turned out to be. Where was the bombast and sass that made Little Mix trail blazers? OK, so no act gets a 100% strike rate. (“Headlines” anyone?) Let’s see what happens when NICKI MINAJ is featured on the first single proper from “LM5”. Nicki can be the icing on most pop singles if she’s affixed somewhere in the proceedings. “Woman Like Me” was the start of Little Mix’s Year of the Woman campaign, aka the LM5 era. After the success of the last few ‘first’ singles from their albums, there was expectation for this song to blow everything before it out the park.
Instead, the song didn’t hit the top spot and 4 months on from its release, its UK Spotify streams aren’t as stratospheric as those LM songs before it. Never mind, the album will rectify this surely? The answer was a resounding “no”. Upon release, the album sold 50,000 copies in week 1, reaching number 3 in the UK, before falling out of the top 10 within a fortnight! “LM5” has now been out for 3 months, with a moderately successful first single proper and 3 promo singles which went OK. “Strip” was the biggest hit of the promo tracks, hitting the top 30 for a week. Not bad, but, in a market full of ladies promoting stripping back to basics, including the massive Christmas hit “Thursday” by Jess Glynne (who, coincidentally or not, co-wrote “Woman Like Me” and shares certain lyrics on this song with “Strip”) it feels like the track didn’t go on to become the runaway hit the record label hoped (the fact a video was made for it as well suggests there was an attempt to push this all the way). Again, something didn’t quite connect with the general public.
2nd single “Think About Us” has yet to even enter the UK top 20, even with a feature from Ty Dolla Sign, who helped make fellow X Factor group Fifth Harmony score their biggest hit with “Work From Home” 3 years earlier. The album has struggled past the 100,000 sales mark in the UK which is pretty awful for their standards and is so far their worst seller by a mile. Now the Christmas market has long died, which they relied on for the last 7 years to hit the massive sales, it’s not looking good. Is this the reason Simon split with the girls? He jumped as soon as he could see the Little Mix ship was sailing.
The group have stated that “LM5” is the album they always wanted to make. Maybe, too much input from the girls is the reason they’ve disconnected somewhat. Manufactured groups who go from having everything mapped out for them to trying to do it their way hardly ever works very well (examples: Spice Girls ditching their manager which undoubtedly helped Geri think she’d be better to leave, STEPS going for a more grown-up sound in 2001, Girls Aloud doing a song without Xenomania?!?!) Perhaps poorer ratings for The X Factor in 2018 and their absence from the series finale, which they were usually the star performers in these shows, meant too few people in their target audience were watching what they were doing.
Here are my predictions for what will happen next for Little Mix:
Once the campaign for this album has dried up (which I fear will happen sooner than anyone had hoped during its creation), they will announce an “hiatus” upon completion of their Autumn tour, for which tickets luckily went on sale before anyone could get used to LM5 (or not as the case seems to be). I would hope that the girls realise from history, that going solo probably won’t work out and they still need each other to be successful. So, they could return in 2021 for a 10th anniversary celebration and bring out an album free of featured rent-a-rappers, with a sound reminiscent of their “Get Weird” collection. Maybe they could do an Olly Murs and tag on a 2nd CD with their greatest hits.
I really hope Little Mix don’t quit altogether because the coins aren’t coming in as vast an amount. I don’t think they’ll be able to pull off enough of a credible facade to reclaim their former glory days without the power of the Syco machine chugging along in the background…especially when the music isn’t quite there either.
DJTim:E's Pop Music Journal 