Girl groups are all-female vocal acts that perform catchy, harmonized pop music. Some of the definitive girl groups include the Supremes, the Ronettes, the Spice Girls, and Destiny's Child.
The original American girl group is the Boswell Sisters, a vocal trio from New Orleans that toyed with jazz standards' compositions and became a popular radio act during the 1920s and 1930s. But many critics consider the first true girl groups to arrive with rock 'n' roll and the Chantels' 1957 single "Maybe." Through the '60s, records from labels like Philles and Motown and groups like the Ronettes and the Supremes continued developing the sound.
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 by working in hip-hop, dance music, and lyrics focused on female empowerment. The model continues to this day, especially through K-pop acts like blackpink.
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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.
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.”
The original American girl group, the Boswell Sisters, toyed with jazz standards by experimenting with challenging renditions. The group became a popular radio act during the 1920s and 1930s, with few of their fans aware that group leader Connee Boswell used a wheelchair.
Doo-wop was a vocal-based pop music popular in the ‘50s that coincided with the rise of early rock ‘n’ roll. The mid-tempo, harmony-heavy songs about teenage life provided the template for the girl group sound, which arrived at the end of the decade.
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.
The term comes from an idiom about dedicated romantics carrying torches for their love interests. The style was especially popular for female vocalists before the rise of rock ‘n’ roll and significantly influenced early girl group records.
The Brill Building was a building in New York City that housed the working offices for over 160 music industry professionals, including some of the country’s finest songwriters, such as Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, and George Clinton. Below is a 1959 picture of three more Brill Building pros: Carole King, Paul Simon, and Gerry Goffin.
The 1960 song, composed by husband-and-wife Brill Building occupants Gerry Goffin and Carole King, was more than a little suggestive. The main character wondered if her partner would abandon her after a night of passion, leading to some stations banning the record. But it also propelled the song to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
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.
While working at the Brill Building, Carole King became one of the architects of the classic girl group sound, penning hits like the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and the Chiffons’ “One Fine Day.” One song she regrets writing, though, is the Crystals’ “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” a song she now believes normalizes domestic violence.
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