Little Mix to hit high note (minus Simon)
HIGH from the success of their single ‘Woman Like Me’, Little Mix are set to maintain the momentum by releasing a new track on Tuesday.
The Cure comes from the group’s spanking new fifth studio album, LM5, and continues their theme of female empowerment, as members Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jesy Nelson, Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall sing about pulling themselves out of a dark state of mind and finding the confidence to be happy and live their best lives.
It would be easy to consign Little Mix to the annals of bland bubble gum pop, but it would also be very wrong. The girls have amassed a fiercely loyal following since the band was formed by Tulisa on The X Factor seven years ago.
Last weekend, the news broke that Cowell’s Syco Music was no longer working with the girl group. In an interview Cowell told his side of the story, explaining that it was due to a rift with Little Mix’s management company over a song writing credit, and not with the girls themselves.
You would imagine that such a split would crush a group, but for these Little Mixers, it is onwards and upwards.
I caught up with Leigh-Anne last week and she explained that positivity in the face of adversity is the group’s mantra.
‘It has been non-stop really, since we were put together. Every year that passes we have gotten closer to where we want to be in our careers,’ she told me.
‘Obviously with The X Factor, that was our platform and yeah, it is mad when you think that we were all thrown into it. There was no going back and it was almost like boom, this is your life now.
‘And it is amazing because I wouldn’t want to do anything else. But I think it was a lot to get your head around.
‘We are so happy with the success we have had though and there is no stopping us.
‘We are going to carry on doing what we are doing and release good music and hope that we keep getting bigger and bigger. The secret is friendship. The fact that we all get along and we all want the same things. There isn’t any front woman; we all just want to give one another a chance to shine. We bring something unique individually and if one of us wasn’t in the group it wouldn’t work.
‘It is all four of us and because we are so close and we get on that’s why it works.’
Woman Like Me, featuring Nicki Minaj, is currently climbing the British singles chart, peaking at No2 so far. Minaj endorsed the track with a high octane performance at the MTV European Music Awards earlier this month — a dream come true for Leigh-Ann. She says: ‘We have always said that we wanted to work with her.
‘To collaborate with her at the EMAs was just the stuff of dreams and we are still floating down to earth a bit. It is probably the best moment of our careers to be honest and really exciting.’
And Irish fans will be delighted to hear that the girls are looking forward to doing their thing in Dublin for the very first date of their upcoming tour.
‘I can’t wait to come back to Ireland,’ she adds. ‘We have had this album for a while now and we cannot wait to get it out there and see what people think. We love coming to Dublin, we always have.
‘Our Irish fans have always been very loyal to us and it is great to be able to replay that by starting the tour in Dublin.’
One of the steady criticisms that gets levelled at the group is that their on-stage outfits are too skimpy and revealing and portray a bad image of women. Conversely their fans insist they feel empowered by the girls and believe that you won’t get better role models.
‘We always said that what we wanted was to make music to make people feel good about themselves. And that is what we have done. In terms of us being role models, we are generally being ourselves but I know for a fact that each of us wants to use this platform to spread that message of positivity and to make young girls feel good in their own skin.
‘But we live in an age of social media where you are going to be criticised no matter what. So you have to be bigger than that and be true to yourself. You can’t please everyone.’
LM5 is on sale now