Monday, 16 August 2021

A lyrical history of Girl Power - Revisited


I have, over the years, written about the origins of the Spice Girls "Girl Power!" slogan a number of times (it tends to crop up whenever I'm writing about Riot Grrrl) but I hadn't specifically written about the lyrical origins of the phrase before. 

I decided to do so in 2018 because the Spice Girls were reforming at the time and, while it might seem mean spirited of me, I can never resist the urge to take a few shots at the myth that they were "The first girl band ever!" (Um, The Shirelles?, The Supremes? Bananarama? The fricking Nolans? I could go on...) or "They were the most ground breaking girl band ever" (I think there's a few earlier bands - The Go-Go's for one - who could make a more convincing claim for that...) 

Funnily enough, no one has ever (to my knowledge) made any great claims about the quality of their music or lyrics, so a discussion about the lyrical origins of Girl Power seemed overdue really. 

Photo by Valentina Conde on Unsplash


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