The B15 Project featuring Crissy D and Lady G 'Girls Like Us'

Chart Peak: 7

YouTube

The principal members of the B15 project are Angus Campbell and Ian Wallman, whose name is inspired by the postcode of the Edgbaston studio in which they first started working together... Ian used to be Choice FM DJ while Angus - cousin of UB40's Ali Campbell - started out as a bass player.

Back into the world of memorable tracks with singing, although I never did work out why it was called 'Girls Like Us' when the lyric is clearly "girls like this" (and is even subtitled as such in the video, I've just discovered). Possibly there were some sample clearance issues at some point, although I think the truth may just be that the vocal isn't treated that reverently in the track as a whole, being chopped up, sped up and otherwise used as a texture; that makes the live vocal on TotP an odd decision but it's something I can heartily approve of. It feels a bit like a throwback to the speed garage sound that produced a flurry of hits in 1997 but then seemed to tail off until the tail of the century. On the other hand, the arrival of Lady G's lascivious, Jamaican-accented rap partway through makes this sound a bit like the blueprint for Mis-Teeq's hits over the next couple of years. I don't know whether there's any connection between that and the lack of further success for the B15 Project; maybe the name didn't suggest an act in it for the long run. Still, this is a song I've found hard to forget over the years, harder than many a more feted release of the era.

Available on: XX Twenty Years, Vol. 2 - Ministry of Sound