When British R&B trio dropped their debut single “ ,” a sugary sendoff to a cheating ex, they easily won over a pop audience desperate for an impeccable girl group that seemed to be having genuine . Singer-songwriters Stella Quaresma, Jorja Douglas, and Renée Downer met in 2019, after an Island A&R discovered them each from their Instagram cover songs. Despite being assembled in a somewhat old-fashioned way (through a male executive), they projected a distinct sense of identity from day one, having wisely spent three years perfecting their sound.
“Cardboard Box” went viral in 2022, and two EPs full of punchy followed, featuring smooth, soaring runs reminiscent of and harmonies that smush and melt like s’mores. FLO became the first group to win the BRIT’s Rising Star Award, performed at Coachella and Lollapalooza, and opened for . Their rise speaks to an ongoing appetite for American-style girl groups, even as uber-polished K-pop and J-pop acts dominate the nostalgia-driven scene.
were the most recent U.S. girl group to resonate globally and did their best to refresh the surface-y girl power of the 2010s for a shrewd, selfie-loving generation.
FLO is the next logical iteration of that ethos in a post- era. Their empowerment pop feels intuitive and true to the way many twentysomethings move through the world with a sense that boundaries are real and that agency and respect are self-evident. But if a girl group’s main job is to supply harmonies for days and kick .