The classic girl group sound arrived with doo-wop

A 'girl group' is an all-female vocal group

It’s not a perfect descriptor, but it’s the one that stuck, due mainly to the definitive girl groups of the late 1950s who sang about teenage love. Since then, though, the girl group sound has evolved, even if the term has remained the same.

Hear the first classic girl group record: the Chantels’ ‘Maybe’

While there were all-female vocal groups before the Chantels, most critics consider the group’s 1957 single “Maybe” to be the first record of the classic girl group sound because it established the model’s foundational elements: a mid-tempo backbeat, soaring harmonies, and yearning lyrics.

Before becoming a country superstar, Dolly Parton recorded girl-group-style singles

Parton signed with Monument Records in the mid-1960s and released a few singles that were distinctly not country music. Instead, they sounded like Phil Spector productions, in the vein of records by the Ronettes and the Crystals. Although they weren't hits in the United States, songs like "Don't Drop Out" took off in England's Northern Soul scene, which celebrated American records that had slipped through the cracks.

The ‘90s saw a resurgence of the girl group

The ‘90s saw a resurgence of the girl group, with acts like TLC, the Spice Girls, and Destiny’s Child turning the model on its head. While still strongly influenced by the ‘50s and ‘60s girl groups, these acts also worked in hip-hop and dance music. Most significantly, they emphasized female empowerment—or “girl power”—rather than adolescent yearning.

Watch a definitive girl group documentary

The 1983 documentary "Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound" features archival footage of some of the Shirelles, the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, and more alongside interviews with the performers and songwriters. It's a fascinating look back at the music, told by the people who pioneered it.

The Boswell Sisters were the precursors to the American girl group

The jazz trio, popular in the ‘20s and ‘30s, doesn’t share much in common with the sounds of the well-known pop-oriented girl groups, but the sisters’ prominence in a male-dominated industry provided an early example for later groups. Check out their appearance in the 1932 film “The Big Broadcast,” performing the song “Crazy People.”

Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’ revolutionized girl groups—and pop music

The method captured a room of live musicians and transmitted the sound into a basement outfitted with more speakers and microphones. That sound was then sent into the central control room, producing a massive recording that sounded unlike anything else in pop music.

Girl groups had a profound influence on the Beatles

The legendary Liverpool group cut their teeth playing girl group hits at the Cavern Club (including the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," which appeared on 1963's "Meet the Beatles) and even invited the Ronettes to join them on their world tour in 1966.

Take a look at an early rock 'n' roll artifact

This 1956 jukebox musical, "Rock, Rock, Rock!," is an early example of the burgeoning rock 'n' roll culture—with performances from Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, D.J. Alan Freed, and several others. It was also a catalyst, sending the new youth culture into theaters around the country.

Microphone technology made crooning possible

Before the electric microphone, vocalists needed to project to have their voices captured. The new technology, however, made softer, more intimate singing possible, leading to a new style of singing that took off in the late 1920s, with "crooners" becoming some of the first American pop stars.

'Where Did Our Love Go?' was the first of 12 number-one singles for the Supremes

Motown brought more soul and R&B into the girl group formula with acts like the Marvelettes and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Its biggest success, though, was the Supremes, who scored their first hit in 1964 with “Where Did Our Love Go?” They would go on to be the most successful American group of all time.

'Rock 'n' roll' eventually became 'classic rock'

As the 1980s arrived, rock radio began pivoting to the term “classic rock,” allowing them to focus on the Baby Boomer demographic and ignore the still-evolving genre. Since then, “classic rock” remains, though it’s constantly being redefined, due in no small part to its slippery name.

How Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees New Order forged a new sound

Formed in the ashes of post-punk outfit Joy Division, the British group incorporated synthesizers and pulsating, disco beats for "Blue Monday," their early single that would come to define the 1980s sonic landscape.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Brian Wilson originally wrote the Beach Boys' classic 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

Broadway's songwriters began experimenting in the 1920s

Broadway’s early decades were heavily influenced by opera and vaudeville, but songwriters in the 1920s began exploring more narrative-based songwriting and psychologically complex characters. That trend would continue in the following decades, though it would evolve in even more nuanced ways.

The Bakersfield Sound challenged the music's creeping respectability

As country music leaned towards the slick Nashville Sound in the 1950s, several artists operating outside that city reacted with rougher sounds more reminiscent of honky tonk and early rock ‘n’ roll. It came to be known as the Bakersfield Sound, reflecting the California agricultural region.

Western swing merged country with jazz

For as long as country music has been set to record, its artists have experimented with the genre’s boundaries. Look no further than this track from 1946, Bob Wills’ “Roly Poly.” The song is a classic example of Western swing, a country subgenre that blended country and jazz.

The 1939 ‘Wizard of Oz’ reimagined Baum’s book for a new age

Technological breakthroughs brought high-quality, synchronized sound to films by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, the movie-musical, a genre that blended artful cinematography and Broadway-style musicals, became more popular. “The Wizard of Oz” evolved the form further by structuring the plot into episodes anchored by memorable, revelatory songs.

Long before grunge, Hüsker Dü blended pop's melodies and punk's speed

The Minneapolis trio began as a lightning-fast hardcore band, but they slowly became more melodic than many of their early '80s peers without sacrificing their punk edge. That combination would eventually be called a mess of names: college rock, alternative, indie, and, eventually, grunge.

Taylor Swift's songwriting resonated with teenage girls around the world

One fan recalls that the themes of Swift's early songs included hope, betrayal, and a sense of being unremarkable but wanting to be special. She argues that these themes were especially powerful to young girls, regardless of where they were from.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Is the love song dying?

This visual essay, compiled using 65 years of industry data, is an entertaining trip through the history of pop music, exploring whether or not music has grown less romantic. But, at its heart, this isn't about the Billboard charts—it's about the many different ways we define romance.

The sound of hip-hop's 'Golden Era' is thanks to a shared lexicon

The music’s “Golden Era,” between 1987 and 1994, saw producers and DJs developing more sophisticated approaches to sampling, or repurposing existing sound, by crafting elaborate collages. Many of them used the same references, thanks to a popular bootleg compilation called “Ultimate Break Beats.”

Trot: Korea's melancholic pop that came before K-pop

Following the end of the Japanese occupation, Koreans shared their complex emotions through a musical genre called trot. Blending sorrowful lyrics with upbeat music, trot was used to dance the pain away after a difficult period.

A brief history of dance music

Throughout history, crowded, dimly lit, sweat-filled, and loud spaces that have hosted dance music have mirrored and shaped social change. Tracing the evolution of dance and club culture from the 1950s to today reveals changes in youth culture and desires over time. Read this article to learn more about how dance floors have reflected societal movements.

Before the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed was a workaday songwriter

His job at Pickwick Records, a label that churned out budget records for department stores, was to crank out generic pop fare. One of those songs was 1964’s “The Ostrich,” a dance song in the style of Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” and Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion.”

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Fireworks make a loud booming sound after exploding due to air expanding faster than the speed of sound.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.