'One Strike' is no 'Never Ever,' but it never needed to cover girl group history from 'A to zed.'
We're very happy for your excitement (or disdain) over the Ghostbusters trailer and Fuller House's Netflix debut, but today's pop culture revival is truly the one we didn't know we needed but couldn't be more excited for: All Saints are back.
In case you weren't a teenage girl in 1997, let us help you out: All Saints is a British girl band who hit this side of the pond with two major pop anthems, "I Know Where It's At" and "Never Ever" before fading into the ether, at least in the minds of Americans. (They actually had two multi-platinum albums and five No. 1 singles in the U.K.). They came, they conquered, they weren’t the Spice Girls, and we nearly forgot about them.
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But they couldn't leave us forever. After announcing their comeback last month, the group -- which consists of Mel Blatt, Shaznay Lewis and sisters Natalia and Nicole Appleton -- just dropped a black-and-white video for their '80s-meets-'90s jam, "One Strike."
The song was co-written by Shaznay while Nicole was going through a divorce with Oasis' Liam Gallagher, but the 40-year-old London native told i-D that the lyrics were more "about how your life can just change in one instant" than the separation itself.
Will this change the landscape of pop music? No. It isn't anything you haven't heard before. But does it show you that everything you loved in the '90s will try to come back and deep down in your heart you couldn't be happier about that notion? Yes. Is it fun? Yes. Will you be nodding your head at your desk and pressing repeat? Solid chance.
This is All Saints' first video in nine years, and even if it's just to bask in feelings of nostalgia, it's worth getting excited about. Take a look:
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The vibe is very reminiscent to their 2000 single, "Black Coffee," just more grown-up and with a much less cheesy video. (It's not their fault. It was 2000, that glorious time when trucker hats, layered tank tops, and shiny cargo pants were the coolest.)
Now for a little All Saints history: The British girl group initially formed in 1993 and quickly became known for their harmonizing skills. Not long after releasing their second studio album, Saints & Sinners, in 2000, the four went their separate ways, including individual solo attempts. Though they briefly returned in 2006 with Studio 1, just three years later, Mel told i-D that they would never get back together.
This recent reunion, however, apparently started despite that statement, when they were asked to tour with the Backstreet Boys a couple of years ago (because who else would they hit the road with?). Even though they didn't make any money on that venture, the groupmates said they had the best time ever doing it.
"We thought we'd just do it for a laugh, but then we just didn't want it to end," Natalie told the British magazine. "We liked being together. We wanted to be together. I mean, we hang out anyway, but we wanted to hang out in this world."
And that is how we got "One Strike," the first song off All Saints' new album, Red Flag. When it's released in April, the LP will apparently feature a song called "Ratchet Behaviour." Thank you for changing your mind, Mel.
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If this still sounds like any ol' girl band to you and you don't understand our excitement (because, yes, we know what happened to Dream, please don't remind us), All Saints was always pretty delightful.
In "Never Ever" -- which does that Sam Hunt talk-singing thing to kick off a song before Sam Hunt even wanted to have a music career -- they sing "the alphabet runs right from A to Z," then halfway through the song, they bust out "A to zed" instead for rhyming purposes. Do you know how many 13-year-olds started screaming "A to zed" down the halls of their middle schools? So many of us who swapped Seventeen for Sugar because British girl power seemed a lot cooler than anything on Snick. So. Many. Of. Us.
We mean, c'mon -- just try not to get this stuck in your head:
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You can thank us later. We'll be the ones digging out our old All Saints, Spice Girls and Take That CDs, then trying to figure out if we still own any technology that can still play these said CDs.
This all leads us to a truly important question: Will the Spice Girls celebrate their upcoming 20th anniversary? Let Scary Spice tell you: