Girl Thing - Sometimes You Hit, Sometimes You Miss

We all know the sad story of the failure of Girl Thing, the 5 piece girl group who burst onto the pop scene in the summer of 2000, a year in which countless girl bands emerged hoping to steal the crown of the UK's biggest girl band from the Spice Girls.

With the girls managed by Simon Cowell and hit producers Absolute, Steelworks and Stargate on board, success looked likely, especially when the girls managed to blag the cover of an issue of Smash Hits before their debut single was even released. However when said single "Last One Standing" was released in July 2000, it could only reach #8, despite having a wacky video in a church, which itself was reminiscent of the Spice Girls' "Wannabe". This was where Girl Thing's problem lay. People kept comparing them to the Spice Girls. True their music was similar and they were aiming for the same market, but the public didn't really give them a fair chance and they had practically written them off before they had even begun.

When their second single "Girls On Top" which was arguably better than their debut could only stumble to #25 in November 2000, the writing was on the wall for the girls.

Despite appearing at The Smash Hits Roadshow in December of 2000, claiming that their third single "So You Wanna Have Sex" (an ode to keeping your knickers on), would be released in early 2001, it never materialised, and the girls never released another single in the UK.

They managed to have a little success in Australia, where a third single "Young, Free And Happy" was released in early 2001 along with their self-titled debut album, which was also released in the Far East and Japan (where practically everything gets released!) The album itself is a rather solid piece of pop. Some of the tracks stray dangerously close to Spice Girls territory, but on the whole there are a number of strong tracks! As far as I ama aware "So You Wanna Have Sex" has never been released, it was not on the album released in the Far East, probably due to the nature of the song.

When Hear'say hit #1 in March 2001, it became news that "Pure And Simple" which appears on their album, was originally recorded by Girl Thing and it had been earmarked as a single. In my opinion, Girl Thing's version was better than Hear'say's and the girls were understandably not happy when the song was given to someone else. This was the final nail in the coffin for Girl Thing. So much was expected of them and this was partly their downfall. It would be a tall order for ANY group to live up to the name of the mighty Spice Girls. Countless other girl groups launched in 2000 failed too, and noticeably the number of girl groups launched in the few years following were considerably fewer.

Since the disappearance of Girl Thing, a few of the other tracks on their album have turned up on other artists' albums: "From All Of Us" was covered by S Club Juniors on their "Together" album, with different lyrics and retitled "You Are The One",and "Last Goodbye" was covered by another failed band, Irish Popstars Six on their debut album. Neither are as good as the original.

Sometimes You Hit, Sometimes You Miss was written and produced by Norwegian hitmakers Stargate, and the title of the song is quite apt in the pop world. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you really do miss the mark by miles...