Girl Bands in the 'pop' heyday

JMRGBY

JMRGBY

he/him
AcerBenII said:
They changed several times but in summary, they dropped from 4 formats to 3 in 1995, which basically killed off the 7". Then reduced the number of tracks allowed to 3 in 1998. In 2001 they backtracked slightly by allowing up to 40 mins of remixes so long as all tracks were the same song. Then yeah around 2004 it changed to a £2 2-track and a maxi, which resulted in a brief bounce in sales.
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I'm gonna ask so many questions now, apologies! Any and all information would be appreciated cos it really interests me!

With the 1998 change, did an enhanced track take up one of the three tracks or could it be 3+video?
With the 2004 maxi, do you know what the limits were?
After 2004, did anything change again? I recall a lot of 2 tracks but never an accompanying maxi.
 
AcerBenII

AcerBenII

JMRGBY said:
I'm gonna ask so many questions now, apologies! Any and all information would be appreciated cos it really interests me!

With the 1998 change, did an enhanced track take up one of the three tracks or could it be 3+video?
With the 2004 maxi, do you know what the limits were?
After 2004, did anything change again? I recall a lot of 2 tracks but never an accompanying maxi.
Click to expand...

3 + video

I think the 2004 maxi rules were the same as before, so mostly only had 3 tracks.

Current rules

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heartmightmelt

heartmightmelt

JMRGBY said:
I'm gonna ask so many questions now, apologies! Any and all information would be appreciated cos it really interests me!

With the 1998 change, did an enhanced track take up one of the three tracks or could it be 3+video?
With the 2004 maxi, do you know what the limits were?
After 2004, did anything change again? I recall a lot of 2 tracks but never an accompanying maxi.
Click to expand...

I think initially the enhanced track had to take up one of the three, cause I have a handful of CD singles that are 2 track audio + CD extra from 98/early 99, and then it was relaxed and allowed to be counted as a track 4 (as long as one of the first three tracks was a version of the enhanced track). Someone must have challenged that around summer of 99.

When the digital era started, the digital singles had to match the physical single releases for a few years.
 
JMRGBY

JMRGBY

he/him
heartmightmelt said:
I think initially the enhanced track had to take up one of the three, cause I have a handful of CD singles that are 2 track audio + CD extra from 98/early 99, and then it was relaxed and allowed to be counted as a track 4 (as long as one of the first three tracks was a version of the enhanced track). Someone must have challenged that around summer of 99.

When the digital era started, the digital singles had to match the physical single releases for a few years.
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Five and Westlife were big purveyors of two tracks and an enhanced!

When did the 2004 rules come in? It feels like it was the middle of the year? EDIT: Actually, I've remembered these could have started in 2003? My example being S Club 8's Don't Tell Me You're Sorry having a two track and a maxi only a few months after Sundown having two three track CDs? https://www.discogs.com/release/1617192-S-Club-8-Dont-Tell-Me-Youre-Sorry - would that maxi not have violated some of the rules with it having the single mix, a remix of the lead song, a b-side and a remix of a previous single?
 
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AcerBenII

AcerBenII

heartmightmelt said:
I think initially the enhanced track had to take up one of the three, cause I have a handful of CD singles that are 2 track audio + CD extra from 98/early 99, and then it was relaxed and allowed to be counted as a track 4 (as long as one of the first three tracks was a version of the enhanced track). Someone must have challenged that around summer of 99.
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Pretty sure we already had this discussion before.

https://www.discogs.com/release/1612415-BWitched-Rollercoaster
https://www.discogs.com/release/1593407-911-More-Than-A-Woman
https://www.discogs.com/release/479732-All-Saints-Bootie-Call
 
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AcerBenII

AcerBenII

JMRGBY said:
Five and Westlife were big purveyors of two tracks and an enhanced!

When did the 2004 rules come in? It feels like it was the middle of the year? EDIT: Actually, I've remembered these could have started in 2003? My example being S Club 8's Don't Tell Me You're Sorry having a two track and a maxi only a few months after Sundown having two three track CDs? https://www.discogs.com/release/1617192-S-Club-8-Dont-Tell-Me-Youre-Sorry - would that maxi not have violated some of the rules with it having the single mix, a remix of the lead song, a b-side and a remix of a previous single?
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Yes 2003 I remember Jamelia's Superstar being one of the early ones.

And actually I think the rule was relaxed slightly again then for the maxi, so that you could include as many remixes of up to 3 different songs, so long as the duration was below 20 minutes, so the S Club 8 one was fine.
 
AcerBenII

AcerBenII

heartmightmelt said:
Yeah that feels right we have discussed this before!
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First link was meant to be B*Witched, not Boyzone. That was one of the examples of only 2 tracks. I had an Aqua one too.

But I would guess that there was some early confusion over the rules because I could find plenty of CDs from second half of '98 which had 3 different songs + a video.
 
heartmightmelt

heartmightmelt

I had a few who did

1. A-side (Enhanced version)
2. B-side
3. A-side (Remix)

to try and get round the tracklisting rules. Like you said, everybody must have had some different idea of what to do.
 
aquaplex

aquaplex

On crap girl bands (who I’m hoping to get onto streaming this year), anyone know much about Ladies First?

I felt they were a bit Poundshop Mis-Teeq (albeit maybe a tad cooler). They had a member leave the day before their first single was released and I’m intrigued that the album demos CDr contains neither single
 
Island

Island

Staff member
aquaplex said:
On crap girl bands (who I’m hoping to get onto streaming this year), anyone know much about Ladies First?

I felt they were a bit Poundshop Mis-Teeq (albeit maybe a tad cooler). They had a member leave the day before their first single was released and I’m intrigued that the album demos CDr contains neither single
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This is basically all I know. Do you know if their record company or whoever owns their catalogue can confirm an album was made or in the stages of being released? The demo CD is intriguing.

They have quite a few songs on YouTube, too.
 
P

pmas

aquaplex said:
On crap girl bands (who I’m hoping to get onto streaming this year), anyone know much about Ladies First?

I felt they were a bit Poundshop Mis-Teeq (albeit maybe a tad cooler). They had a member leave the day before their first single was released and I’m intrigued that the album demos CDr contains neither single
Click to expand...

I Can't Wait is a bop. Great cover version. Was lovely they at least got their TOTP moment before being dropped.
 
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