A interesting and appallingly bad pop ditty from short-lived girl group Vanilla, this reached number 28 in the UK pop charts for one week in 1997. Vanilla were essentially a cheap rip-off of the Spice Girls; three bored-looking teenage girls with neither looks nor talent. They were Alison and Frances Potter and Alida Stewart - I include this information here because there simply isn't enough about the group to merit an individual writeup.

The song itself is a slow soul number with, for whatever reason, a chorus based on the old Muppet song 'Mahna Mahna'. It appears to have been written and recorded with a General Midi synthesiser in under half an hour, and has a dreadful mock-saxophone break. Did I mention that it got to number 28? They were even on Top of the Pops!

The video looked as if it had been shot with a camcorder and featured the girls standing next to a dismal pool, presumably in the grounds of a motel. They looked bored. Given that the the group were supposed to be a viable challenge to The Spice Girls, All Saints, Destiny's Child and so forth, it was distressing.

Vanilla released one further single, 'True to me', and vanished to the same place as Faith, Hope and Charity. Whereas the latter at least had Dani Behr, none of the members of Vanilla have resurfaced.

I would include the full lyrics here, but, such was the ephemeral nature of the single, they do not appear to exist on the internet (presumably the single will be worth a pretty penny one day). I can remember the middle eight, however:

"If you've got the cheek to think,
you can buy me with one drink -
you're living in a dream world, boy,
go find yourself another toy!

No way no way! Mahna mahna! X4
Not today."

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.