Workmanlike and readable account of girl groups in pop, defined by Greig as 'group[s] of three or more young women singing pop tunes in vocal harmony together, using a style which originated in fifties' teenage American rock 'n' roll', done with a strong feminist slant which is mostly (though not always) convincing. Starts off in the 50s, skipping through the Chantels, the Shirelles, the Crystals and others through to the Ronettes (apparently they were seen, at least at one point, as the female Rolling Stones!) and of course my favourites the Shangri-Las, then on to Diana Ross and the Supremes and the whole Motown scene. I got pretty bogged down in the post-Motown chapters, dealing with girl groups in the 70s and 80s - it's not as much fun reading about outfits that I've never even heard of, never mind heard - and the book ends with the interesting but somewhat forced claim that female hip hop crews like Salt 'n Pepa are the contemporary torch bearers of the girl group ethos (it was published in '89, before the big pop revival of the 90s).
It's a fun read, engagingly written and full of photos, and Greig does a good job of integrating her study with the broader musical streams of the times, though of course with particular emphasis on those who directly influenced and affected the girl group scene - Carole King, Ellie Greenwich, Dusty Springfield, Motown impresario Berry Gordy, and songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland and later Stock, Aitken and Waterman are some of those who are prominent, with acts like the Beatles, Michael Jackson and Madonna having walk-on parts. It's also well contextualised with the social context and changing social attitudes within which the music has been produced, particularly in terms of race, gender and sexuality, though sometimes Greig's claims seem rather too large; for example, she asserts that, by the 60s, '[t]he girl-group ethos had successfully penetrated the male world of popular music to such a degree that men as well as women could now sing innocent, idealistic songs of love and romance', which at best seems something of an overstatement, and is more likely a complete inversion of cause and effect.
One of the best things about the book is its focus on interviews with artists and industry types, providing some interesting insights into the way the music industry has worked in the past (and probably largely continues to operate), particularly as regards the degree to which artists have traditionally been completely exploited by, well, basically everyone - managers, producers, record companies...also interesting to read about the Brill Building method of production in the early days, when artists were signed and records laid down and released in a matter of days, and songwriters worked in adjacent rooms with just a piano and a fistful of ideas.
