New Girl Bands on the Block

It looks like 2011 is going to be a big year for girlbands with several new groups set to launch on major labels. Here are a few new additions to the race with points awarded in Spice Girls out of five!

Representing the USA: Beach Girl 5
The Americans are not great at girlbands, so I was very surprised to hear that Beach Girl 5 were from the US after hearing their phenomenally brilliant new single Scratch. A little research tells me that Beach Girl 5 includes two familiar members, Miley Cyrus’ best friend (apparently it’s not Lesley anymore) Mandy Jiroux, and a girl named Brooke Adams who released a brilliant single called 5th of Never a few years ago, as well as various less appealing tracks under the name Brooke Allison. They are joined by Laura New, Dominique Domingo, and Noreen Juliano. The other songs I’ve heard have been pretty average, so hopefully they do have other stuff as good as Scratch and this won’t be a repeat of last year’s upsetting Jada debacle where they misled us with the amazing American Cowboy into thinking they were exciting, when in fact it was their only good song.

Representing the UK: Parade
I know a lot more about Parade than I can say right now, but I wanted to include them in this write-up as I’m really excited about their potential and want to recommend you all to keep an eye on them. They’re a five piece girl group signed to Atlantic and I get the impression that it’s all or nothing with the launch of Parade. They are not looking to fill a girlband niche, they won’t be a new Sugababes or All Saints, instead they’re aiming to be the next Spice Girls or Girls Aloud. With such ambitions there’s always the risk of falling flat on your face, but you have to applaud them for going for it. Their first promo shot isn’t great but you can take a look here and follow them on Twitter to be the first to know when they begin their launch in full.
(Spice Girls TBC once we’ve heard some music)

Representing Ireland: Wonderland
Wonderland may be managed by my arch-nemesis Louis Walsh but I’m still going to give them a fair chance – one of them was in Girl Thing after all! There have been murmurs of Louis forming an Irish girlband for several years, and Wonderland, before they had a name, actually did some TV performances in Ireland last year. With Jodi Albert being Kian Egan’s girlfriend, the girls cannot escape the Westlife association, so it’s a clever move for them not to aim for any kind of coolness. In fact Wonderland are basically the new Bellefire – nice songs and a chance some of them could be pretty good (the one I liked best, Not a Love Song, is expected to be their debut UK single), but certainly nothing even approaching ground-breaking. Louis’ influence is obvious as one of the tracks they’ve recorded is a cover of a recent country hit which didn’t quite make it in the UK, Need You Now by Lady Antebellum.