Pop
The success of American boy band New Kids on the Block from about 1989, led to replica acts in the UK, including Nigel Martin-Smith's Take That and East 17, competing with Irish bands Westlife and Boyzone. Soon after, girl groups began to reappear, like the R&B act Eternal, who achieved a string of international hits from 1993. The most successful and influential act of the genre were the Spice Girls, who added well-aimed publicity and the ideology of girl power to their pop careers. They had nine number 1 singles in the UK and US, including "Wannabe", "2 Become 1" and "Spice Up Your Life" from 1996. They were followed by British groups like All Saints, who had five number 1 hits in the UK and two multi-platinum albums. By the end of the century the grip of boy bands on the charts was faltering, but proved the basis for solo careers like that of Robbie Williams, formally of Take That, who achieved six number one singles in the UK between 1998 and 2004.
Read more about this topic: Music Of The United Kingdom (1990s)
Famous quotes containing the word pop:
“I don’t pop my cork for ev’ry guy I see.”
—Dorothy Fields (1904–1974)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The children [on TV] are too well behaved and are reasonable beyond their years. All the children pop in with exceptional insights. On many of the shows the children’s insights are apt to be unexpectedly philosophical. The lesson seems to be, “Listen to little children carefully and you will learn great truths.””
—G. Weinberg. originally quoted in “What Is Television’s World of the Single Parent Doing to Your Family?” TV Guide (August 1970)