Backtracking is our recurring look back at the pop music that shaped our lives. Friends may come and go, but we’ll be spinning our favorite albums forever.

Consider the landscape of today’s R&B and hip hop, populated by girl singers grinding their way across tracks written, produced and test marketed for them by multiple teams of biz hitmakers, pushed by a promotional cycle that can sometimes land them in tabloids and on gossip sites. Then consider En Vogue: four Oakland, California women — Dawn Robinson. Maxine Jones, Terry Ellis and Cindy Herron — who combined sex appeal, girl power (they predated Spice Girls), major vocal cords and not one scandal.

Released on March 24, 1992, Funky Divas was a dream scenario: a sophomore album that utterly eclipsed their debut, 1990’s Born To Sing. Produced by Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, Divas’ thirteen tracks spanned everything from Beatles-inspired pop (literally, a cover of “Yesterday”) to rock (“Free Your Mind”) to light rap (“It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Sings”). The opening track, “This Is Your Life”, foreshadowed the success with a spoken intro positioning En Vogue as superstars rushing to appear on stage before screaming hordes.

“Free Your Mind”

The Funky Divas Of Soul: First single “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get it)” may have stalled at #2 on the Billboard‘s Hot 100 — damn those Kriss Kross boys! — but it blazed across MTV and radio. “Free Your Mind”, a snarling empowerment anthem, presented what would be En Vogue’s most iconic visual: swinging their epic ponytails on a runway in thigh high boots. The song, like the Mark Romanek-directed video, literally struts.

“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”

Givin’ Us Something We Can Feel: En Vogue’s team also knew that it couldn’t hurt to lure in their parents’ generation. “Giving Him Something He Can Feel”, a Curtis Mayfield track originally released by Aretha Franklin, came complete with a slinky retro video, again capitalizing on the group’s model-worthy looks and pure vocal harmonies.

“Giving Him Something He Can Feel”

And It Goes A Little Something Like This!: Funky Divas was rounded out by smooth, harmony-laden pop/R&B hybrids like “Hip Hop Lover” and “Love Don’t Love You.” It was also laced with kicky wit: the best example being the gossipy intro vignette to “Give It Up, Turn It Loose,” a creamy-smooth track that has, perhaps, aged best, with the divas  backstage discussing who’s zoomin’ who. “Ooh! Kevin Swahili, I knew it! He’s got cooties!” So quotable.

“Give It Up, Turn It Loose”

What Happened Next: After sales of 5 million for Funky Divas, the next chapter is a cliché of music biz hiccups, including a stop-gap (but excellent) EP called Runaway Love. Record labels pushed their moneymakers just as hard in the ’90s, and financial/management concerns led Dawn Robinson to leave the group. The Fab Four was no more. It would take five years to compete the follow-up, 1997′s 3. Despite some solid tracks, this one lacked the fizzy mojo so prevalent on Funky Divas. Following a few more worthy singles, the group splintered further.

Live appearances from 2008 through 2010 suggested that all four original members were finally ready for a new LP, but Dawn Robinson decided not to join her En Vogue sisters in the studio.

Will they ever reunite?: We can only hope they find a way to stand side-by-side and, simply, sing their hearts out once more. It’s easy to label En Vogue a “girl group.” Pop culture in 2012 places a skewed value on the public airing of its big stars’ personal dramas. To call En Vogue “girls” seems to diminish their inherent strength. Yes, they were sassy, had fierce heels and wicked hair. But through their music, these four women gave a literal voice to race, faith, love and sex in a united front of female power. And that is harmony.

Can you believe Funky Divas is 20? What’s your favorite memory of the album? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter! And make sure to check out our other recent Backtracking features on Kylie Minogue’s Fever, Spice Girls’ Spice, Daft Punk’s Homework and No Doubt’s self-titled debut album.

Kelly Rowland, Kelis and En Vogue all rocked the main stage of L.A. Pride 2010, keeping the gay and gay-friendly crowd entertained throughout the 40th anniversary of the pride celebration. All of dance-pop’s leading ladies were honored with plaques in their name for delivering bright-and-bold performances and for continuing to support gay rights—two things anyone should be extremely proud of. Jump below to check out their live performances from this past weekend.

Kelis – “Milkshake” and “I Gotta Feeling”

Kelly Rowland – “When Love Takes Over”

Kelly Rowland – Destiny’s Child medley

En Vogue – “Free Your Mind”

Lovely pop lady Matisse also showed up on the main stage at LA Pride, performing her single “Better Than Her.”

Matisse – “Better Than Her”

Behind the Sugababes’ latest lineup machinations, which make one wonder if the group is shape-shifting into a sort of female British Menudo, is a trend piece about enough slant histrionics to make Ken Russell films wilt. There’s even something telling in the yearlong break rival girl group Girls Aloud announced in July, following on the heels of some of their strongest offerings yet. If the crown jewels in Britain’s pop tiara are wont to defect so quickly—and leave us with The Saturdays—shouldn’t it be time to reassess the girl group as a business model? Perhaps, with pop going the way of our economy, we probably shouldn’t be turning to something as volatile as singer-stuffed girl groups for a bailout.


Boybands and even male-fronted rock bands seem to enjoy some sense of longevity. But why do their female counterparts seem to have all the reliability of AIG? Below, a categorical look at five iconic girlb(r)ands for whom dissolution was all but foretold.


Ego
The white-hot center of every Sugababes cock-up. Founding member Siobhán Donaghy exited in 2001, claiming Buchanan was bullying her. But she abhorred the bubblegum pop-and-B sound the group was teetering toward, and artistically thrived once out of the band.


And think back to a previously small-time R&B all-girl quartet that went by the name Destiny’s Child. After their first album, half the members were dismissed, and two new ones were drafted—then one of those girls was let go. With each of these shakeups, Beyoncé was pushed more and more toward the frontwoman role. When she had outgrown even that, Beyoncé went solo and basically went onto fill the boots that Janet Jackson had abandoned. Rowland and Williams were both rewarded with solo careers following the band’s split, but it stands to reason that what would’ve been best for all three members was the very thing that B eyed as a career roadblock for herself. (Although perhaps Rowland felt the same way; after all, real solo success didn’t come until she completely severed all professional ties to Beyoncé, Inc.)


Then there’s En Vogue — or, more specifically, Dawn Robinson. One of the R&B vocal outfit’s four original members, she quit En Vogue after they had scored their biggest single in order to pursue a solo career, and the band carried on as a trio until she returned in 2008.


Sick Leave
Peculiarly enough, the Sugababes never employed the “s” word when recent replacement Amelle Berrabah failed to show up at a pre-Keisha-departure gig. Originally, she was rumored to be the one getting the All About Eve treatment, but when you’re the only member of a group to have a hand in a recent UK No. 1 single, management’s probably going to fire not you, but the employee who hasn’t scored the No. 1 but acts like she has. Though Berrabah’s now a confirmed no-show for at least the next three weeks—not a good omen considering the band’s next album is due out in November.


Then there are some ladies who leave their respective girlbands at the height of their success. So drunk on fame, or those little bottles of red wine they give you in business class, they undo their Union Jack corsets and then mouth off about “wanting to be real” and “discovering themselves.” They’re a lot like Geri Halliwell. She cited “personal health reasons,” when abandoned her former bandmates on the eve of their first world tour. She had found that to be an opportune moment to chat about her own cancer scare. Sure, Halliwell was only second to Victoria Beckham when it came to which Spice Girl was the worse singer, but she was the band’s charisma, as evidenced by this load of crap that the band unleashed in 2000.


Meanwhile, Halliwell did the whole cancer awareness song-and-dance, racked up some bogus goodwill at the UN, and wished Prince Charles a happy birthday. Then seven months later, she returned. In order to demonstrate how much our precious Ginger had “grown up” and “evolved” in that forever-ish span of a half-year, she had reverted to blonde hair, stopped wearing platforms, and eventually emerged from a giant pair of spread legs during an appearance at the BRIT Awards. Her solo career was later marked by having a hand in the creation of Girls Aloud via her appearance on Popstars: The Rivals and putting out a few yoga DVDs.


Motherhood
In 2005, founding Sugababe Mutya Buena–who supplied the bulk of the group’s street cred with her thug princess mien–left the band, wanting to be a mother. (She also invariably went the solo route, even teaming up with Amy Winehouse along the way.) In 2001, after Robinson had left En Vogue, another founding member, Maxine Jones, also left to spend time with her family and two new singers were drafted. But motherhood is also why the Spice Girls half-assedly reunited in 2007—they wanted their kids to know what their mothers did for a living.


The lesson here: When you lure young girls into the music biz, the abstract fear that they may want to leave the band and make something of their lives always lurks. Some like to do this by rearing children, getting married, and other such bizarre things. Perhaps large men in gunmetal suits micromanaging the affairs of women an eighth their size would do well to remember that they only own the rights to the singing voices of the women they hire.


Clinical Insanity
The only Sugababe to ever sport the crazy-eye was Berrabah, but all of her antics weren’t horrible enough to get her the boot.


But long ago, we learned that burning down your boyfriend’s house did not prevent you from being one-third of a leading pop group. TLC’s late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was incendiary, especially when she lit her boyfriend’s house on fire. More odd is when she teamed up with a Spice Girl and all the universe could do was cosmically shrug. Still, it was a tragic car crash in Central America that rubbished out one of the critical pillars of TLC. Although this ill-conceived do-over of “Ladies’ Night” did not do much to inspire faith, nor did sorry time when her bandmates decided to replace her by way of a reality show on UPN. Never has the dismantling of such a cultural hallmark been so swift.


The Stealth Break-Up
After Halliwell’s departure from the Spice Girls, a two-year period of inactivity followed, with other members temporarily exploring solo careers to varying degrees of success. When they regrouped in 2000 for Forever, their charisma and spark had fizzled out—and wasn’t properly reignited until they, along with Halliwell, were lured back to the ranks in 2007 to the tune of $20 million a head.


A much more amicable version of this is currently playing out within Girls Aloud. With the band quietly agreeing to take a yearlong break, member Cheryl Cole is making good on her promise to dabble in solo pursuits, with “Fight For This Love” leading the campaign for her first record Three Words — which has already courted less-than-favorable first impressions. Cole faces the same problem Berrabah did earlier this year: If “Fight For This Love” lands within spitting distance of No. 1 and the album goes onto sell well, then Cole’s ego will bloat proportionately; she’ll be armed with a contingency plan should Girls Aloud’s next album suffer the same cracks and breaks that the Sugababes have faced as Sweet 7 stumbles toward the public.


Conclusion
We’ve all seen Mean Girls, right? In the same way that peace of mind was achieved when The Plastics dissolved, so will harmony be restored when members of the Sugababes go the way of those of Destiny’s Child and their predecessors: with few stars carving out careers (Mutya, we’re still rooting for you!) and others settling into bland, bourgie domesticity.


Perhaps one day suits will learn that you cannot seal teenage impulses within iron-clad contracts, because then your primary asset will evolve into Lindsay Lohan—times three, four, or five, maybe—and render itself totally, utterly unprofitable.


[Pic via Popjustice]

Last night, R & B foursome En Vogue celebrated the 20th anniversary of their formation with a show at B.B. King’s in New York. Above is a clip of them performing the monster ballad “Don’t Let Go,” which was the group’s final single to feature prodigal daughter Dawn Robinson (she returned to the fold last year), last night; somehow, it manages to be a pure display of pipes and a mass singalong at the same time. Nice trick, that. (And wholly unsurprising, as midway through my first spin of this clip I started singing along with the song, although not loudly enough to disturb the cat napping about 10 feet away from me.) [YouTube]