The One-Hit Wonders – The 90s Part 9.

I’ve never really been that interested in boy bands and girl groups, but then they have never really been aimed at me. But one thing that is notable is just how many of them were on the pop scene in the late-90s/early-2000s, usually featuring people barely out of their teenage years, or maybe still in them, and maybe they weren’t ready to be put though the unforgiving music business, but this group did better than most, even if they did only have one hit single.

Recently when I was looking back at some old Smash Hits online from this era, and I was rather surprised by just how many adverts there were for girl groups that I don’t remember who never had a hit. They were promised that they would be famous, but there were so many manufactured groups at this time that for many them this never happened. But this group had more hype than most, and it seemed like they would do well, there was no doubt about this one.

21st Century Girls were going to be a girl group that would be different from the others, but then aren’t they all. They’re the next big thing and are here to stay. This was a quartet from England that consisted of Leanne, Fiona, Kate, and Meriam. I remember that among the publicity push there was an interview in the Official UK PlayStation Magazine that I was a regular reader of around this time.

In June 1999 their debut single “21st Century Girls” was released, and this rather surprisingly didn’t make the Top Ten, reaching no. 16. This must’ve been a disappointment for them to some extent, even though they’d already done better than most groups. I think they appeared on Top Of The Pops, and I would hope that pop stars from this era still considered this to be something of an honour, even if there only were about 12 viewers left by this point.

But then, that was it. There were no further singles from them, their album wasn’t released, 21st Century Girls split shortly after, and the project was considered to be a flop. The strange thing about them is that they actually didn’t get as far as releasing any singles in the 21st century. I don’t know much about what happened to them after this though. I suppose it’s proof that not every group’s dreams can come true.