’Girlbands Forever’ Redefines 90s Female Pop with Scandal, Solidarity and Smash Hits

1 November 2025

From left: Melanie Blatt, Natalie Appleton, Shaznay Lewis and Nicole Appleton as All Saints performing at The Mobo awards in 1997. Photograph: JMEnternational/Getty Images

The new documentary series Girlbands Forever warps us back into the glittery, high-stakes world of 1990s British and Irish all-girl pop groups, offering a sharp-edged blend of nostalgia, ambition and the messy reality behind the choreography and chart-toppers. Among the bands spotlighted are All Saints, Eternal, Atomic Kitten and Sugababes, and the tone adopted in the show is a mix of celebration and critique of the era’s glossy facade.

At first glance, the series might appear to tread well-worn ground girl groups, matching outfits, the rise to fame but what sets it apart is its willingness to go deeper, to expose the ambition, pressure and exploitation beneath the synchronized dancing and peppy hooks. The documentary opens with that line: girlbands, then shimmering icons of empowerment or manufactured spectacles. The producers don’t pretend the story is straightforward.

Viewers are treated to candid interviews. Among the reveal-moments: Kelle Bryan of Eternal recounts how the group were reportedly sent to a countryside retreat, placed on strict diets and subject to aesthetic controls while the label’s head denied any knowledge of such measures. A former member of All Saints confesses that when she discovered she was pregnant she was pressured with the option to leave the band. The show doesn’t shy away.

Off-stage controversies collide with on-stage glamour. The show highlights how these bands were often moulded with precision marketing, their public personas shaped by bland cheer for mass-male demographics, even as the young women inside were being told to shape their bodies, voices and lives to fit the structure. The line between agency and control blurs repeatedly.

Musically, the series doesn’t neglect the hooks. Tracks such as “Never Ever,” “Sounds of the Underground” and “Scandalous” soundtrack the journey, reminding us that for all the turbulence behind the scenes, these groups delivered songs that defined a generation. It’s easy to sing along, to remember the video clips, the dance moves, the anthemic girl-power moments but the series forces us to reflect on what was behind that power too.

Crucially, the series frames these all-girl groups as both creation and creator. Yes, many were formed by male A&R execs, yes they were packaged and sold but many of the members found a place of genuine community, creativity and ambition within that system. As one member puts it, “talented but frustrated girls break ties with their Henry Higgins founders and succeed in their own way.”

This is not a simple critique of commercial pop: it also reframes the girl-group formula as a site of cultural significance. These young women travelled the world, performed at screaming arenas, achieved chart resistance never previously seen for young female bands outside the U.S., and connected with audiences while labelled as “fun.” The series asks: what happens when fun becomes contract, image becomes obligation, and fifteen-year suspension of touring becomes pressure?

There is an international dimension too, as the programme shows how British groups navigated a U.S.-dominated music industry, how Black female singers worked harder for less recognition, and how race, class and gender shaped every contract, headline and photo-shoot. As the documentary authoritatively notes, whilst the pop culture lens may have widened, it’s hardly pointing in a different direction.

Visually the archive footage is revelatory. We see teenage girls meeting the press for the first time, the studio lights, the boys-boys-boys sightings, the dancers, the choreography. We see the early Sugababes raw, teenage, surly and then we see the polished version, formed and reformed through changing line-ups. We see Atomic Kitten meeting Westlife in their early days and wonder at how magic and formula were interwoven.

What’s fascinating is how the show balances affection and critique. There are moments of pure adrenaline: the stage, the lights, the screams, the high-five moments of being in-the-band. And there are moments of despair: diet camps, pressure, internal fighting, line-up changes, pregnancies treated as liability. The documentary refuses to idealise or condemn it simply shows.

For fans revisiting those records, the series is chance to re-listen with fresh ears. For younger viewers, it is a window into how pop culture was constructed and how the system still works in many ways today. The dolls and sequins didn’t protect these women. The industry did not guarantee empowerment. But the music the anthem-style emotion, the girl-gang energy did matter.

Whether you came to love these groups for the music, for the sisterhood or for the aesthetic, the documentary offers a layered view. It invites us to cheer the hits, acknowledge the hoopla and understand the human work behind “girl power.” It may not settle the tension between image and reality, but it gives voice to the women who lived both sides of it.

In the end the message is clear: the golden age of 90s girlbands might look glossy when viewed in full HD, but behind the sequins and flashing cameras there were real girls with ambition, pressure, guilt and resilience. And for all those reasons the era is worth revisiting not just for the dance-moves and harmonies, but for the story below the surface.