Little Mix, currently at another profile peak with their TV talent show The Search, are one of the most successful female groups ever, their tours amongst the highest earning of recent times. Like a CGI-shiny Instagram-age Spice Girls, now newly signed to RCA after years on Simon Cowell's Syco label, they offer teeth-rattling sugar-pop with a girl power motif, although Confetti, as its title suggests, is even more of a frothy frolic than usual.
The producer-songwriters on Little Mix’s sixth album are the cream of contemporary chart-pop back-roomers. They include MNEK, who first earned his stripes with Xenomania/The Saturdays, Swedish Max Martin associates Goldfingers, Little Mix regular Kamille, and fellow gold-plated London co-writing trio TMS. Between them, this lot have written multiple chart-toppers, their clients including Dua Lipa, Zara Larsson, Clean Bandit and dozens more of that ilk. The sound, then, even at its best, is never unexpected. This set could derive from any act these crews work with, albeit with the girls’ harmonized vocals compressed and cannoning out of the speakers, studio-polished to within an inch of their existence.
This isn’t to say the songs don't have legs. The best material allows space, percussive attack and low-end snap, alongside catchy choruses and X Factor-style vocal showboating. Cuts such as the bleepy, drill-ish “Sweet Melody”, the rat-a-tat dancehall bounce of “Gloves Up”, the Mark Ronson-ish disco-funk of “Holiday”, and the skipping drum & bass-flavoured title track are suitably juicy. Upon occasion, the band are no slouch in the lyrical department either, with “Sweet Melody” and “Not a Pop Song” particularly drawing attention (“This ain’t another pop song about falling in love/Or a party song about drinks’n’drugs”).
Major female pop artists, ranging from Dua Lipa to Hayley Williams, have recently tweaked their sound on albums to impressive effect, while still retaining their fanbase. Confetti is not such an album. Instead, it’s daytime Radio 1 chart-pop of exactly the kind you’d expect Little Mix to make, but it has its moments, nonetheless.
Below: Watch the video for "Sweet Melody" by Little Mix
