100 songs of the decade: Black Magic – Little Mix

Written by: Edvard Førre Erfjord, Henrik Michelsen, Ed Drewett and Camille Purcell
Produced by: Electric and Matt Rad
Album: Get Weird
UK release: July 2015
UK chart peak: 1

Going back to the summer of 2015, Little Mix had a lot riding on Black Magic: after the Salute album era – which was fucking brilliant, if not quite as commercially enormous as it should have been – there was a whoooole lot of behind-the-scenes angst. The band were worried that the stuff they were recording wasn’t cutting it, and fans were stressing out that Syco seemed to be putting all their energy into Fifth Harmony.

But the Get Weird campaign was worth the wait: Black Magic showed the group shamelessly (and brilliantly) eyeing up a more straightforward pop sound, ditching the ~cool vibes of the second album and charging all guns blazing towards the mainstream bop market. It’s a fun, breezy, multi-demographic-pleasing anthem, and it did what needed to be done: it put their sales back on a sharp upward trajectory, it marked the beginning of their three-year Imperial Phase, and it allowed them to serve some truly brilliant live performances. The BRITs! The Teen Choice Awards! That epic X Factor medley with Love Me Like You!

Truly a massive pop hit.

• I’ll be writing about my favourite 100 pop songs of the decade; one a day for the last 100 days of 2019. They’re in no particular order, except the Top 10 – which will (obviously) come in late December.
• See the full list so far here.
• You can follow the rolling, daily-updated playlist here.