THEY are our biggest pop group, with fifth album LM5 out Friday — but the past six weeks have not been easy for Little Mix.
After an emotional period which has seen them split from former mentor Simon Cowell’s record label, the band are taking a stand against suggestions of “diva behaviour” and sexism in the music business and told of their plans for a fresh start.
In an exclusive interview, Perrie Edwards admitted: “We’re ready for a new start.
“Change, especially in the creative industry is always good.”
Bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock added: “We were with Syco for seven years and had an incredible journey but it’s going to be nice to change it up and get a new view on us.
“A change and a fresh start is a good thing, we’re excited.
“I think it’s going to be good for us as well. I’m intrigued to see what people want to do for us.
“We definitely speak our mind now. If we don’t like it, we always say it.”
Despite new-found confidence in making their own decisions, the girls insist they’re no divas.
Chatting in a London hotel room ahead of the release, it’s clear seven years in the business has taught them how to handle themselves — and they say they have learned the hard way about the music industry’s pitfalls but emerged stronger.
Perrie said: “It’s double standards when you’re young women.
“When we started out it was almost like, ‘This is your lane, stay in your lane. You’re the faces and the name’.
“We’re not. We’re the brand.
“We’re businesswomen. It’s our baby. So everything we do creatively comes from us.
“It is frustrating that if a group of guys were to say, ‘We’re not going to do that song, we’re going to release this song’, it’s like, ‘Maybe we should listen’.
“Whereas when we do it, it’s like, ‘Oh they’re at it again, they’re whining’.
“But we’re not. We’re perfectionists. We take everything we do so seriously. It’s important to us.”
Leigh-Anne added: “I feel we know best. We are young, we know what girls want to listen to.”
Jesy Nelson explained: “The best stuff comes from us. You can tell the stuff that’s come from us because of what we write about.
“And that’s the stuff that hits home the most with our fans. It’s real.”
Their determination to set their own agenda couldn’t be clearer than on new single Strip, with a striking female-empowerment cover, above, of them baring all while emblazoned with abuse flung at them during their careers.
The band were insistent the track became their next release despite some uncertainty from record bosses, and beam with pride as they discuss the positive response to the daring shoot by fashion photographer Rankin.
Leigh-Anne said: “An article came out about Jade and Perrie with no make-up on and everyone was just ripping into them, saying that they looked rank.
“It’s so unfair that girls can’t go out without make-up on without people trolling them.
“So we said, ‘Let’s make a song that makes people feel good about themselves’, and I think it’s really important, especially now with the way social media is.”
Jesy added: “We’re not perfect. We’re just four normal girls who have grown up in this industry and had to deal with a lot of s***, and it has affected us in the past.
“But now we’ve genuinely overcome it and we don’t care any more.
Genuinely, for the first time, we can say we love ourselves.
“People should be able to be like, ‘Do you know what, I do feel good about myself, I do feel beautiful’. Not enough people say it.
“We’ve never done anything like that shoot before. It was fun though, we loved it.
“We co-directed the video with Rankin so we came to him with our idea and we knew we wanted to do it because he’s so good at shooting real life, gritty . . . he just gets it. And he gets us as well.
“We all just got into position, we had our underwear on and then it got cut off and he started taking pictures.
“It felt really empowering. It felt amazing. But if you’d have said seven years ago, ‘Do this shoot’, Never, never in a million years.
“Because we never had that confidence then.”
The girls admitted there are downsides to their huge fame, describing their recent period as their most challenging to date.
Relentless interest in their personal lives and the darker side of showbiz have both played a part — but they are now determined to last the distance.
Jesy added: “We have days when we moan, but we love it. And I would hate to not do this ever again.
“We’ve all had a time where we’ve thought about quitting because of s*** we’ve been through in the industry and it’s just been too much, but we help each other through.
“We’re just very lucky we have each other. We’d go insane if we didn’t.”
Laughing, Leigh-Anne quipped: “We’ve got a lot more money to make.”
Jade Thirlwall recently revealed she was once encouraged to flirt with powerful industry figures by a US record executive.
The band hope that speaking out against such behaviour will encourage other young women to do the same.
Leigh-Anne explained: “It can’t be ignored. We have experienced sexism — it’s so frustrating.
“It’s a serious issue and should be addressed. I’m glad Jade said that.
“Hopefully, that will give strength to someone else to speak out if they are going through it.
“The least we can all do is make people aware.”
Perrie admitted her high-profile relationships with ex Zayn Malik and current boyfriend, footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, have presented challenges which she has finally learnt to deal with.
She said: “You live and you learn. Now we’re very open.
“The more you’re open with things, the less people dig.
“When you try to keep your relationships and personal life private people want to dig. It’s best if you’re really open with it, like us.”
But she insisted: “Don’t call us Wags. We hate that, don’t we?”
mixbit
PREPARE for quirky sounds when you get to listen to the album.
Jade explained: “Production-wise, we’ve been more in control than ever, which is why there are so many weird and wonderful sounds on it.”
Spice up our lives
THERE hasn’t been a band like Little Mix since the Spice Girls and they want to be part of the ultimate show of girl power – by singing with the Spices on tour.
Jesy said: “We’d love to,” and Leigh-Anne added: “It has to happen.”
The girls all said they had been inspired by the Spices.
Jesy explained: “We loved that they were all about girl power and they never held back. It was great how they didn’t give a s**t.
“They said what they wanted and made people feel good about themselves, we really aspire to be like that. It’s brilliant they’ve come back.”
Come on, Spices, make it happen.
mixbit
ON why they settled on calling the new album LM5, Jade explained: “We’re a lot more confident now, so LM5 is very much like, ‘This is us, we don’t need another title, we’re LM, this is our fifth album – boom’.”
The time is write for us
THE girls have become pros at coming up with songs as well as being world-class performers.
They have co-written the majority of LM5 after years of pushing to get more of their own lyrics included.
Leigh-Anne explained: “I feel like we’re more confident in our songwriting and I think as we’ve got older and wiser to the industry, we just know more what we want.
“We’re more confident to stand up and say what we want and when something’s not right or whatever, we’ve just got more balls, I think, and that comes across in the new material.”
As a result, it’s the most self-assured they have ever felt about an album release.
Jesy said: “Weirdly, I’m not anxious about it. This is the most confident we’ve ever felt about an album.
MOST READ IN BIZARRE
“Not to sound cocky, but it’s the album we’ve always wanted to make and we think out of all our albums, this is the one we would listen to the most, because it’s our kind of music.”
It is their most varied record too, going from saucy pop numbers like Wasabi to emotional ballads such as Strip.
They have good reason to be massively proud of themselves.
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/little-mix-are-all-grown-up-and-ready-to-speak-their-mind-and-take-a-stand-against-industry-sexism-after-split-from-simon-cowell/
News Pictures Little Mix are all grown up and ready to speak their mind and take a stand against industry sexism after split from Simon Cowell
You don’t have to pack away your bikini just because you’re the wrong side of 20. These body-beautiful stars reveal their secrets to staying in shape and prove you can smoulder in a two-piece, whatever your age. Read on and be bikini inspired!
TEENS
Hayden Panettiere
Size: 8
Age: 18
Height: 5ft 1in
Weight: 8st
To achieve her kick-ass figure, Hayden – who plays cheerleader Claire Bennet in Heroes – follows the ‘quartering’ rule. She eats only a quarter of the food on her plate, then waits 20 minutes before deciding whether she needs to eat again.
Hayden says: “I don’t have a model’s body, but I’m not one of those crazy girls who thinks that they’re fat. I’m OK with what I have.”
Nicollette says: “I don’t like diets – I see it, I eat it! I believe in eating healthily with lots of protein, vegetables and carbs to give you energy.”
kim cattrall
Size: 10-12
Age: 52
Height: 5ft 8in
Weight: 9st 4lb
SATC star Kim swears by gym sessions with Russian kettle bells (traditional cast-iron weights) and the South Beach Diet to give her the body she wants. To avoid overeating, Kim has a radical diet trick – squirting lemon juice on her leftovers – so she won’t carry on picking.
Kim says: “I am no super-thin Hollywood actress. I am built for men who like women to look like women.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NINTCHDBPICT000449672699.jpg?strip=all&w=960
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий