Photo: Press
All Saints have revealed that they were asked by producers to remove their tops, and eventually forced to lower them to give the appearance of being topless, on an episode of Top Of The Pops.
The ‘90s pop group recently reformed, playing a show at London’s KOKO and releasing their fourth album, Red Flag, earlier this month. Their first incarnation though, was hardly a smooth ride.
Speaking to the BBC, Melanie Blatt discussed how the band’s lack of overt cheeriness led to a disproportionate amount of criticism. “A lot of Britpop groups at the time would act very arrogantly and very stroppy, but that was never seen as a negative thing,” she said. "We weren't half as bad - but if we didn't want to smile one day, or we weren't really interested in doing an interview, we'd be labelled as stroppy cows.”
Perhaps more shockingly, she also recalled an incident that occurred during a taping for Top Of The Pops. "They were filming images of us to use as a backdrop, and they wanted us to take our tops off,” revealed Shaznay Lewis.
"The vision was that we looked naked and we didn't want that vision. But because it was such a huge show, we were told ,’If you don't do it, you don't get to go on the show.'
"The girl that worked with us was in tears because she was trying to fight our corner. We ended up having to compromise with the producers. We dropped our tops to here [indicating her armpits] so it would look like we were topless.”
"We did it but we were stroppy about it,” explained Nicole Appleton. "Again, we got labelled as being difficult.” The resulting footage ended up being aired on an episode of Top Of The Pops in 1997, which you can watch below.
All Saints' full upcoming list of UK tour dates are below, with tickets to the October shows on sale from 9am and available here.
Thu October 06 2016 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE O2 Academy Newcastle
Fri October 07 2016 - GLASGOW O2 Academy Glasgow
Sat October 08 2016 - MANCHESTER Academy
Mon October 10 2016 - BOURNEMOUTH O2 Academy Bournemouth
Tue October 11 2016 - LIVERPOOL O2 Academy Liverpool
Thu October 13 2016 - LONDON O2 Academy Brixton
Fri October 14 2016 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Academy Birmingham
Sat October 15 2016 - SHEFFIELD O2 Academy Sheffield
Mon October 17 2016 - SOUTHEND Cliffs Pavilion
Tue October 18 2016 - NORWICH UEA
