“Get your killer heels, sneakers, pumps, or lace up your boots.”
by Savannah Lane
Visual by Emma Gray
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘power’? If you’d asked me that question at the age of 17, my immediate mental image would’ve been of a white man in a suit, sitting in an expensive chair behind an expensive desk in a glass office. Five years later, I am 22, and my understanding and perception of the word ‘power’ has evolved drastically. But I am still conscious of the fact that my original mental picture exists more than it should.
When I think of power now, my mind vacillates between two separate, though not mutually exclusive, understandings of the word. The first that comes to mind, a product of my optimistic side, is a picture of all the women and nonbinary people that I’ve been lucky enough to work with in the music industry, all the products of their hard and important work, and all of the ways in which they’ve made the world a better place. The second understanding is grounded in theories of social equity, which I have come to grapple with by studying Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies as an undergrad. Through my experiences as a woman working in an industry in which I am frequently disrespected, I came to recognize the ways I operate with the privilege granted to white women.
As a 17 year old still learning about social justice, the first criticisms I had about the music industry revolved specifically around the underrepresentation of women. My privilege clouded my ability to understand the underlying complexities: the power struggles that Black women have faced in the industry throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the day-to-day struggles of trans artists in physical spaces that may not accommodate their identity, the biases behind white listeners’ reluctance to absorb music in non-English languages, the violence that is rampant throughout all areas of the industry. I have come to understand that power, privilege, and agency operate in an unlimited number of ways in this niche business.
Power: exertion of strong influence or control over others in a variety of settings.
Privilege: invisible and normalized advantages given to people based on unearned things, which are historically perpetuated.
Agency: the state of being in action or exerting power; being in control.
These three ideas are all wrapped up in one another. To have agency over the decisions that impact your life, you have to have power. People with more power than you may have the ability to co-opt your agency through coercion and make decisions for you. Understanding this relationship is key when thinking about privilege.
My experience and the stories of people like me in the music industry have led me to question and examine the ways in which these terms operate specifically in that realm — one that is often dominated by cynical, money-driven, straight white men who take advantage of the power they possess. I have been sexually pursued by multiple men much older than me, who held positions of power over me. I have been expected to donate countless hours of unpaid labor for the good of the company. I have been forced into menial tasks, passed over for exciting opportunities that were given to less deserving men. I have been the only woman in a meeting room full of men more times than I can count. At shows, I’ve been physically harmed and violated, disrespected and disregarded by audience members and staff alike. I’ve heard inappropriate comments about my clothing, my hair, my piercings, my tattoos, my weight; not a single part of my physical body and emotional well-being has been untouched by the negligence and audacity of a man in the music industry. When the #MeToo movement hit the music business, it revealed what I already suspected: I am not alone in this. The toxic culture of idolizing men has led to countless acts of violence against young female fans, and these same men control both the performing and business sides of the music industry. This domination continues to exist even as we see a diverse forefront of musical advances. In fact, girl groups serve as the perfect musical mode for examining the effects of power, privilege, and agency within the music industry. But what does the term ‘girl group’ even mean?
Girl group: A music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together ... All-female bands, in which members also play instruments, are usually considered a separate phenomenon … to differentiate, although this terminology is not universally followed ...
‘Girl group’ fails to explain why a separate classification for musical groups consisting of all women arose in the first place. Throughout history, ‘male’ is presented as the default sex, with ‘female’ being the exception to the rule. In the stories of Christian religions, God created man, and from man, he created woman. Language and culture consistently contribute to the separation and labeling of genders and gendering, prioritizing males with words like ‘human’ and ‘mankind.’
The gender division is made clearest when we think about the concept of ‘separate spheres.’ Aristotle promoted this concept by separating the home from the city; the home, or oikos, was private and associated with women, while the city, or polis, was public and associated with men. Karl Marx explains that, following the rise of capitalism, the home as a means of production decreased. Industrialization led to men leaving the home to find work, forcing the women to stay home and take on all domestic labor. The Feminine Mystique, written by controversial second-wave white feminist Betty Friedan, led to this juxtaposition of public and private life becoming more widely recognized and understood.
Accordingly, girl groups exist in a separate classification because women are sectioned off into a separate sphere heavily informed, constructed, and perpetuated by power, privilege, and agency. Men in power have ruled behind the scenes, manipulating girl group members’ agency and prescribing identities, rules, and portrayals of femininity. These complexities thus become essential for unwrapping the history of girl groups.
Part I: The Supremes
The Supremes were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Originally known as The Primettes with a line up of five women, by 1962, the resulting trio became known as The Supremes, the most commercially successful Motown act: Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, and Diana Ross. They are, to date, America’s most successful vocal group, boasting 12 number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Their triumph boosted future African-American R&B and soul musicians to mainstream success.
Motown founder Berry Gordy was known for becoming fixated on women and dropping a previous interest when he found a new one. The Vandellas, The Marvelettes, The Velvelettes, and other girl groups didn’t quite catch his eye like Diana Ross did. By 1965, he had set his sights on Ross specifically; while romantically pursuing her, despite a 15-year age difference, he simultaneously pushed Ballard and Wilson into the background, renaming the group Diana Ross & The Supremes.
Gordy’s tendency to incite rivalries amongst Motown artists was felt within the band. Though Ballard had the strongest soul voice, Gordy pushed Ross to be the frontwoman, which consistently belittled and angered Ballard. She fell into drinking and self-damaging behaviors, and was fired by Gordy in 1967, to be replaced by Cindy Birdsong. Ballard’s initial settlement with Motown led to her collecting a measly $2.5k per year for only six years. After that, she would receive nothing — no royalties whatsoever. She struggled to achieve a successful solo career. After realizing that her attorney was stealing money from her, she lost her home, having to go on welfare to support herself and her three children. In 1976, at the age of 32, she suffered from a fatal heart attack.
Berry Gordy killed Florence Ballard. From the very beginning, Gordy stifled Ballard, forcing her to minimize herself in order to allow his pedophilic love interest to gain the spotlight. Gordy is a complicated figure because he is historically revered and admired for a variety of his accomplishments. Indeed, Motown opened up countless opportunities for Black musicians, and the work he did has left a lasting imprint on the music industry. However, none of this can excuse the level of control he exerted over Motown artists, especially the women.
Gordy, operating as their financial manager, was infamous for clutching onto the majority of royalties and earnings for Motown artists. The actual musicians made very little money and they had to seek approval from him if they wanted to spend money on cars or real estate. His wrath was particularly felt by female Motown artists, whom he forced to attend etiquette school, where they learned a specific brand of womanhood that Gordy preferred they exhibit. They learned to stand, walk, sit, eat, dress, talk, and perform how Gordy knew would appeal to white audiences — the audiences with most money.
His logic was that white men were scared of Black women’s sexuality. Gordy did not want his artists to be seen as sexual beings; he wanted audiences to understand that these were ‘classy’ women. There’s an argument to be made that this was a commendable move on Gordy’s part; Diana Ross herself has said that she was appreciative because it meant that they were not violently sexualized by their audiences. However, it was a significant act in which Gordy controlled their career and every move they made.
Another name that frequently comes up in the musicology studies of this era is Phil Spector. Though Spector never worked directly with The Supremes, his wrath also affected a variety of Motown women. A widely respected producer, his accomplishments are often lauded in musicology or music history lessons, likened to the genius of the vastly male rock stars he later worked with throughout his career. But Spector is perhaps the biggest horror story of a powerful man taking advantage of the women around him. While married to another woman, he began an affair with Veronica Bennett (later Ronnie Spector) of the girl group The Ronettes, whom he managed and produced. Ronnie was emotionally and physically abused by Spector as he attempted to hide their relationship until he could divorce his wife. Eventually, in 1968, Phil and Ronnie married, but almost immediately the torment of abuse became insufferable. Years later, Ronnie would publicly reveal that Spector had imprisoned her in their home, subjecting her to years of psychological torment. He sabotaged her career by forbidding her to perform, and it wasn’t until 1972 that she was able to escape their home, and eventually their marriage, with the help of her mother. In their resulting divorce settlement, she was forced to forfeit all future record earnings and surrender custody of their children, stating that Spector had threatened to hire a hitman to kill her if she did not.
Phil Spector, career producer and abuser, was convicted of the murder of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 after she was found dead in his home. He is currently serving a life prison sentence, eligible for parole in 2025.
Set me free, why don't you, baby? / Get out my life, why don't you, baby? / 'Cause you don't really love me / You just keep me hangin' on / Why don't you get out of my life / And let me make a new start? / Now that you've got your freedom / You wanna still hold on to me.
—“You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” The Supremes
Part II: Spice Girls
Let’s backtrack and fast forward to the ‘90s. In February 1994, an advertisement appeared in British newspaper The Stage that read:
“Are you 18–23 with the ability to sing/dance? Are you streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, & dedicated? Heart Management LTD are a widely successful Music Industry Management Consortium currently forming a choreographed, Singing/Dancing, all Female Pop Act for a Record Recording Deal. CVs, Photos & Demos (if applicable) are being collected, with audition dates soon to be released.”
Over 400 women auditioned. During the audition process, all of the women were judged by Chris and Bob Herbert, the father/son duo that ran Heart Management, and financier Chic Murphey. The men judged all of the women on a variety of factors, including appearance, or the perceived ease with which they could sell them to consumers. After several rounds of cuts, the all-male board of Heart Management executives selected five women for their manufactured pop girl group: Victoria Adams (later Beckham), Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, and Geri Halliwell.
The women, who became known for their Spice personas — Adams as Posh Spice; Brown, or Mel B, as Scary Spice; Bunton as Baby Spice; Chisholm, or Mel C, as Sporty Spice; and Halliwell as Ginger Spice — signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single “Wannabe” in 1996. It became a number-one hit in 37 countries and commenced their global success.
Their debut album Spice sold more than 23 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history. Since then, they’ve sold more than 85 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling girl group of all time, one of the best-selling pop groups of all time, and the biggest British pop success since The Beatles.
After the lineup was finalized by Heart Management, they stuck the women in a house together, where they worked with a rotating cast of industry executives. Both of the key songwriters that they frequently saw were men, as were the producers they worked with. During this whole process, Heart Management was slow to officially sign the women. Frustrated, they convinced the company to schedule a showcase performance and invite industry executives to see what they were working on. After this concert, multiple companies were clamoring to sign them, but Heart Management quickly threw together a contract that they presented to the women. It was extremely strict and binding, so the women delayed signing it and sought legal advice. Eventually they declined to sign with Heart Management and tracked down their own producer and manager to work with.
Simon Fuller entered their lives in 1995, immediately signing them and helping them get their record deal with Virgin Records, while building the rest of their business team. He quickly capitalized on the brand that the women were forming, rolling out ‘girl power’ paraphernalia and heavily promoting the Spice personas, pushing the stereotyped femininities that had been assigned to these women. Simon Fuller shaped the core of what the Spice Girls would become known for. He was the business brain behind their operations and commercial success, because he was selling these women, turning them into a brand. The commercialization of ‘girl power’ is what the Spice Girls are most frequently criticized for, but it was created by the man behind the scenes. In her book Girl in a Band, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth says, “the term girl power was gained by the Riot Grrrl movement that Kathleen [Hanna of Bikini Kill] spearheaded in the 1990s. Girl power: a phrase that would later be co-opted by the Spice Girls, a group put together by men, each Spice Girl branded with a different personality, polished and stylized to be made marketable as a faux female type.”
The legacy of the Spice Girls is multifaceted. Their commercial success is unmistakable, and they paved the way for women to dominate pop music, creating a space in pop music specifically for women. However, Simon Fuller ripped the idea of ‘girl power’ from its radical roots, taking away the spirit of the initial movement. An original Riot Grrrl manifesto reads: “We will never meet the hierarchical boy standards of talented, or cool, or smart. They are created to keep us out, and if we ever meet them they will change, or we will become tokens.” We will become tokens.
Tokenization, an act itself of co-opting agency, is bound to happen when white men have power over women. Although Victoria, Mel B, Mel C, Emma, and Geri were agents in their lives, negotiating in their own ways, the Spice Girls were undoubtedly victims of tokenization, prompting the general public to become critical of the shallow ways in which they relied upon and marketed ‘girl power.’ Kim Gordon is not wrong in her criticism that they became polished and stylized in order to be sellable. However, when men use their power to manipulate language established by women for women, critics should draw attention to the male manipulation instead. As the music industry becomes marginally more diverse over time, is there room for hope that creative agency may be properly restored? Is there room for hope that men will be held accountable?
The race is on to get out of the bottom / The top is high so your roots are forgotten / Giving is good as long as you're getting / What's driving you is ambition I'm betting.
—“Who Do You Think You Are?,” Spice Girls
Part III: Little Mix + beyond...
Many pop culture critics and writers have said that Little Mix are the Spice Girls of the 2010s. The two acts have similar, though crucially different, impetuses. In 2011, Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Jesy Nelson all auditioned as solo artists for British reality singing competition show, The X Factor. Although rejected as solo artists, judge and (in)famous music industry executive Simon Cowell suggested that they join as a girl group, allowing them to continue on the show in that form.
They ended up winning that season of The X Factor, setting a record as the first group to win the competition. Following their victory, they initially signed with Cowell’s record label, Syco Music. They immediately became known for their strong vocals and signature harmonies, as well as their representation of female empowerment and unity.
With their debut album DNA reaching the top five in the United States, they became the first girl group since The Pussycat Dolls to do so, and earned the highest debut U.S. chart position for a British girl group’s first release, breaking the record previously held by none other than the Spice Girls. Their fourth album Glory Days became their first number-one album in the U.K., and also achieved the longest-reigning girl group number-one album since the Spice Girls’ debut album 20 years prior. They’ve since sold over 50 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling girl groups of all time.
Little Mix has done what few reality singing competition stars are able to do; they’ve transcended that reputation and gone on to make a name for themselves as more than just first-place winners. In 2018, they parted ways with Simon Cowell, moving to RCA Records. Their lead manager is a Black woman, Sam Coxy, with Modest Management. They work with a team of primarily women — their music video directors, choreographers, dancers, stylists, and touring crew — including many queer women and women of color.
Nonetheless, they have consistently relied on many of the same marketing and branding tactics as the Spice Girls. Themes of girl power, body positivity, and female solidarity appear frequently throughout their albums — listen to “We Are Who We Are,” “Salute,” “Hair,” “Power,” “You Gotta Not,” “Woman Like Me,” and “Strip” for a taste — but physical image is an essential aspect of their brand. The clothing, hair, and makeup choices are clear in their visual branding. They are still trying to sell you on their image.
Yet, the key difference in understanding the nuances comes by examining where the agency in these decisions comes from. Berry Gordy wasn’t there to force them to go to etiquette school to learn how to twerk for their music videos. Simon Fuller wasn’t there to label them, forcing the sole Black member, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, to be ‘Scary Mix’ as the only Black member of the Spice Girls, Melanie Brown, was dubbed ‘Scary Spice.’
The concept of agency and the ways in which it informs physical portrayals of women is an immensely vast topic that we can only begin to think about. The music industry has improved and diversified throughout recent years, though often in performative ways. While festival lineups inch closer to representative lineups, the executive gatekeepers booking those events remain male-dominated, and increased diversity is straying almost exclusively towards achieving a 50/50 divide of the man/woman gender binary for the sake of saying to critics, ‘Look, we booked more women, are you happy now?’ Venues release public statements in support of social justice movements, but fail to put in the internal work of evaluating the ways that biases exist amongst their own staff. Similarly, record labels and industry executives continue to rely on physical image as a marketing tactic, as well as outdated and surface-level portrayals of womanhood.
Women carry the pop music industry, and fanbases composed of mainly women are responsible for the success of many pop stars, including girl groups. Not only are they under the microscope of the media, they also bear the burden of exerting the emotional labor of serving as a positive role model for their fans. Even when they exert agency over decisions that affect their career, like Little Mix seemingly has been able to, they have no control over how the public perceives them or the media portrays them.
When women make music, it is never just about the music; it’s about what they look like and how they dance and what their lyrics mean and what their personal life is like and who their songs are about and how much money they make and what they decide to do with that money and which women they are friends with — or better yet, which women are their enemies. This is all further complicated by race and class. Black women in pop music are expected to perfectly balance expectations about how they should present from Black and white audiences alike, while being inherently pitted against one another by critics. While white pop stars are praised as fashion icons for drawing inspiration from historically Black fashion trends, Black women receive criticism for seemingly any fashion choice. They are also expected to exude an image of luxurious wealth, always presenting with perfect hair, nails, skin, and clothing; however, too many photos with expensive bags, cars, or jewelry, and suddenly, they are boasting.
From where I have stood and currently stand as a white woman in the music business, I am equal parts disgusted and hopeful at any given moment. The music industry has been and continues to be cruel to women, specifically Black women. The agency of these artists is ripped away at every possible moment because they are not represented by those in power, and in turn, those in power seem not to understand the consequences of the ways in which they continuously co-opt their agency.
The number of dangerous situations I have encountered while working in music is severe, but I know that I have not endured the struggles faced by my peers who are further marginalized and even less represented. I have hope that the music industry will continue to reckon with its ugly past, and that it will, in time, treat women better. The women of Little Mix were treated better than the women of the Spice Girls were treated better than the women of The Supremes. Controlling men in the industry have been and continue to be toppled; it is and will remain an ongoing process of righting past wrongs and paving futures critical of sexism, racism, and classism at any turn.
Girl groups are the pinnacle of these issues in the music industry. They are also creators of fun, danceable, sticky-sweet pop music, bringing joy and an enhanced understanding of social issues into listeners’ lives. These women contain multitudes, constantly navigating the complex and intersecting identities of pop star and woman. To be a pop star is to be vulnerable and share parts of yourself with your audience, but audiences will likely never understand them on a mutually personal level; the audience/performer boundary is one that is deeply important, but can also limit audience members’ understandings of performers’ lives. Sitting with this thought, considering and attempting to comprehend the multitudes of situations that girl group members have experienced throughout musical history, has shaped the way I view music.
I am apprehensive, yet excited about the future of girl groups. I am regretful, yet proud of their past, and I am disturbed, yet enlightened by studying it. Greater than their destructive, misogynistic history is the potential for girl groups to continue to chip away at the music industry, creating a space specifically for all types of women and nonbinary people — a space that is safe and encouraging of personal expression, free from co-opted agency and coercion. Long live the girl group.
Hold up, no you didn't / I ain't the chick to walk behind you 'round town / Just 'cause you're packin' down south / That don't mean I'm ever gonna take it lying down, baby / I'm a machine when I do it / I'll be catching fire, gasoline when I do it / Baby, you're the man / But I got the, I got the, I got the power / You make rain / But I make it shower / You should know, I'm the one who's in control / I'll let you come take the wheel, long as you don't forget / Who got the power? / I got the power / Yeah they call me Lamborghini / 'Cause I know just what I'm worth.
—“Power” Little Mix
