Official Chart Flashback 2012: Little Mix spread their Wings and fly to Number 1
01.09.2022 - 11:23
/ officialcharts.com
It seems silly, foolish almost, to imagine a time when Little Mix's success wasn't guaranteed.
But take yourself back to 10 years ago this week, in the first week of September 2012, and it was a make or break-up moment for Perrie, Leigh-Anne, Jade and Jesy. Wings, their first original song released as Little Mix and their first since becoming the first group to ever win The X Factor, was about to be unleashed.
The UK was in something of a girlband renaissance during the late 00s and into the early 10s, thanks in large part to the continued critical and commercial success of pop titans Girls Aloud and Sugababes. But by 2012, the Sugabaes' fourth line-up containing no original members had fragmented and Girls Aloud were still on hiatus (and about to announce a ten-year reunion that November).
For every band that seemed to emulate the successes of the last generation (The Saturdays), there were those who faded into the ether (Girls Can't Catch, Mini Viva, the Dolly Rockers). Which camp would Little Mix fall into? They were heading into unknown territory. The last great, truly successful X Factor winner had been Alexandra Burke in 2008, but it had been a long time since Bad Boys. But then, like now, the success of every pop act is simple enough, really; release a really good song.
Luckily for everyone involved, however, Little Mix weren't messing around and Wings (if we're discounting Cannonball becauase, honestly, who counts Cannoball) is a debut single for the ages. One of the best and brightest introductions to a band that would go on to re-define what a girl-group can do, act and sound like.
Backed by an energetic production mixing bombastic brass (inspired by Christina Aguilera's Back To Basics album) and a