Deep Dive: Shampoo, WE ARE SHAMPOO

It’s National Women’s History Month, and if you’ve been checking out Rhino.com since March began, then you know that we’re making a concerted effort to utilize a number of our regular features as opportunities to spotlight female artists. Today, we’re doing a deep dive into the heart of the ‘90s to revisit the debut album by the UK duo known as Shampoo.

Carrie Askew and Jacqui Blake, the two young women who make up the complete membership of Shampoo, weren’t the studio creation that many have suspected. In fact, they’d been best friends at Plumstead Manor School in London, their bond forged over a mutual love of Manic Street Preacher which resulted in a Manics fanzine (Last Exit) and led to the teens appearing in the video for the band’s song “Little Baby Nothing.” 

As it happens, all of this was going on at approximately the same time that Jacqui and Carrie decided to start Shampoo, releasing their first single, “Blisters and Bruises,” in 1993. If there’s any question that they were in with the Britpop in crowd, the song was co-written by Lawrence of Felt and Denim, and the label that released the song – Icerink Records – was one started by Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne. Both “Blisters and Bruises” and the group’s second single, “Bouffant Headbutt,” which was released later in ’93, were both well-received by critics, but neither charted. 

The same cannot be said for “Trouble,” however, which is likely the Shampoo song that you either already know or would at least recognize if you heard it. In fact, before we talk any more about it, let’s watch the video, shall we?

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(Writer’s note: If you know the song and you remember seeing the video but you’d swear that the video you saw wasn’t the one you just watched, you’re probably right: in the U.S., the song was released in conjunction with The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Movie, so there’s a different video that features imagery from the film.)

WE ARE SHAMPOO featured material which was decidedly more radio-friendly that the two singles that preceded it, and it worked in the group’s favor: they ended up scoring a #11 hit with “Trouble,” with the subsequent two singles, “Viva La Megababes” and “Delicious,” hitting #27 and #21, respectively. But this, of course, was in the UK. In America, Shampoo struggled to find a foothold, and this was despite their aforementioned soundtrack inclusion and appearances on the soundtracks of Foxfire, Trojan War, Barb Wire, and Casper: A Spirited Beginning. All things considered, we should probably be lucky that the album made it to these shores at all: when it finally arrived, it was on I.R.S. Records, and it was a year after it had been released pretty much everywhere else.

WE ARE SHAMPOO is definitely an album that qualifies as an artifact of the ‘90s, but it’s a fun one that’s worth revisiting on a regular basis. If you’ve never heard it, then now’s the time. (If ever we needed a little extra fun in our lives…)