This is Why the Time is Ripe for an All Saints Comeback

What is the forecast for pop music in 2016? The album formerly known as SWISH by Kanye West now has a release date, Rihanna’s ANTI just touched down for free, and Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry may or may not be on the way. And perhaps because every action needs an equal and opposite reaction, All Saints are back.

This week, they announced new single “One Strike” and new album Red Flag in an exclusive interview with i-D. The single was written by Shaznay about Nicole's split with Oasis and Beady Eye frontman Liam Gallagher, and is a genius move from a PR perspective – historically, the public love a catchy pop song that dishes dirty details on a messy break up. It’s like reading a Daily Mail showbiz section ghostwritten by Max Martin. Beyond that though, is there any opportunity of success or longevity for All Saints the third time around?

For those too young to remember or too old to care, All Saints were the sulkier, streetwise, credible foils to the Spice Girls in all their commercialised, primary colour bawdiness. Major single “Pure Shores” was a chart dominating dream pop song, back when dream pop was pop music that sounded like your actual dreams, and not just something Soundcloud bands that cited the Cocteau Twins hashtagged alongside sea-based artwork. For a while, they epitomised the 90s British teen girl psyche: four bad ass girls in vest tops cruising down a promenade with ice cream in their mouths and the sun in their faces.

After releasing eight top ten singles (including five #1s), they acrimoniously disbanded in 2001 in kinda perfect style: by fighting over who would wear a particular jacket at a photoshoot. They would return again in 2008 with a #3 single, and again in 2013 with a few live shows, but whether they were slayed by Girls Aloud (the first reunion) or their headline tour cancelled (the second one), a gaping All Saints sized absence always resumed. So thank fuck they're back, because it does feel like with today's pop scene – exciting, fresh and somewhat freed from the usual limitations and boundaries, where the newness of Drake can be rivalled by the retro stylings of Adele – that it's now, and only now, that an All Saints reunion could actually make waves.

For a start, 90s nostalgia is encoded into the DNA of so much of what we consume at the moment, whether its Charli XCX and her crop tops, bovva boots and tattoo choker necklaces sounding like a one-woman Shampoo; girlband M.O. and their affinity for stonewash denim; Tove Styrke’s cover of "…Baby One More Time"; or the entirety of referential yesteryear wistfulness that is most of Tumblr. And that’s before we mention the unstoppable renaissance of Craig David, who has found himself a platform again by making the exact same sultry UK garage that broke him in the first place. As Noisey’s Angus Harrison wrote of Craigy D: “We now exist in an era where pop music, and pop culture, is afforded unprecedented levels of credibility. With this foundation, of not just nostalgic fondness but interest and respect, Craig David can rise again.” And so too can All Saints.

This is a time period where 18 to 35 year old women are the unquestionable buying force of music consumption. The older portion of whom were raised on Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, FUBU and gym kit as streetwear. Who knew music before X Factor, and know that being a singer doesn’t mean you need to sing the loudest, longest and the hardest; sometimes you can sound a bit bored of it all, totally over it, and still create hit records.

It's pertinent, because that is exactly how All Saints sounded. Their harmonies were tight, but their delivery was nonchalant. They’re not trying. They’re too cool to try. Listen to “Never Ever” or “Black Coffee” or “Pure Shores”, and you can almost hear them checking their watches. Half of the appeal of All Saints was in their, “Give a shit?” attitudes, which is not to be confused with the shameless “We DON’T give a shit” attitude of the brazen Spice Girls. It was this subtle difference that first gave All Saints that elusive “cool” factor which made them appeal to musos as well as regular, high-consumption pop fans.

It was a moodiness that was later replicated by Sugababes – the sullen, smoking behind the bikeshed counterparts to Girls Aloud’s glossy prom queens aesthetic – to much the same effect. While the Spice Girls and Girls Aloud were ultimately more of a cultural fixture and influence, amongt critics All Saints and Sugababes were far more in favour.

But the present day music industry is not notoriously kind to popstars over a certain age, especially not female artists. The original Sugababes comeback (under the name Mutya Keisha Siobhan) faltered at the first hurdle when the audience at their first live show was deemed too old (and too gay) to secure radio play. Madonna hasn’t been playlisted in almost a decade, and was callously castigated for smooching Drake at last year’s Coachella.

Still, in 2016, you could question whether mainstream radio is as important as it was when All Saints first arose. We’re entering the personally curated playlist age, where Spotify and Apple Music collections are beginning to outshine the prescriptive, limited (and so often predictable) A-lists of mainstream radio. It’s not hard to find a playlist these days where Taylor Swift sits right next to Skepta, who sits right next to eight different variations on the same dance track with some throwback R&B and a “guilty pleasure” thrown in. As a result, the idea of music being for teens and some music being for adults is slowly eroding into a disintegrating fallacy.

The key to this All Saints return though, will be the new material. Already the clip of “One Strike” harks back to the All Saints of old, in a soothing way. Listening to the "of old" almost 20 years later, it’s surprising how current and modern their music still sounds. With the exception of their debut single “I Know Where It’s At” (which was always a strange kind of anomaly in their discography), you realise that the melodies, production and lyrical realism of the All Saints we knew and loved is not a million miles always from say, the Alessia Cara of now.

Perhaps Cheryl Cole was right when she accused All Saints in 2008 of “trying to sound like us [Girls Aloud]”. Perhaps that’s why that album truly bombed. The chaotic production of that record was a far cry from their lush yet laconic Saints & Sinners and gone were their signature muted khakis and cargo pants, replaced by bold colours, overwhelming directness and cropped skinny jeans. In truth, for All Saints to make it stick this year, they need to occupy that natural territory that made them so great: just resting on the edge of the party but still being better than everyone else in the room.

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