All Saints are a BRIT Award-winning English-Canadian all-female vocal group. Founded in 1996, the group consists of founding members Melanie Blatt and Shaznay Lewis, and sisters Nicole Appleton and Natalie Appleton.
All Saints became one of the most successful British pop groups of the 1990s, with 9 Top 10 singles (including five number ones), two platinum albums (including a number one), two gold albums and record sales in excess of 10 million worldwide.
After being united as a newly formed group in May 1996, the four met with Karl Gordon, a former band member of Outlaw Posse, who recorded a demo for "I Know Where It's At".
The band began looking for a new record deal, but most record labels wanted to model them after The Spice Girls, who had become an international sensation by that time. The demo made its way to London Records, where John Benson finalised the recording deal in November 1996.
In summer 1997, their debut single "I Know Where It's At" reached #4 on the UK Single Charts. The second single, "Never Ever", launched them worldwide, peaking at #1 in the UK for 2 weeks and in Australia for 7 consecutive weeks.
The single sold over a million copies in the UK alone (going Double Platinum) and wont the group two BRIT Awards in 1998 for Best Single and Best Video. Their debut album All Saints was released on November 24, 1997, reaching #2 on the UK Album charts and eventually went 5x Platinum in the UK for sales of over 1.5 million copies.
The third single from the album was the double A-side "Under the Bridge / Lady Marmalade" which was their second UK number one single, topping the charts in May 1998. The same month the album was re-released with a slightly different tracklist and after the success of "Never Ever" its Nice Hat Remix was replaced by the All Star Remix, "Let's Get Started" renamed to "If You Want To Party (I Found Lovin')" and "Beg" and "Trapped" were re-edited and re-mastered. "Bootie Call" was released as the fourth single off the album and their third UK number one. "War Of Nerves" was chosen as the fifth and final single which peaked at #7.
In November 1998, All Saints also won as Breakthrough Artist at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Milan and were one of the live acts, performing "Lady Marmalade" but without Blatt who was close to giving birth to her daughter. |
