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Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast.

I'm Chris Malanfi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series?

On our last episode, we walked through the history of the girl group, most especially its early

60s heyday when vocal ensembles, the rawnets, and the Shangri-Las were commanding the charts.

After Motown Superstars The Supremes dominated the late 60s, the girl group era passed into history.

But disco, new wave, and freestyle dance music kept the girl group alive through the 70s and 80s.

We're now entering the 90s, when a new generation of Sisters with Voices, who emerged after hip-hop,

are about to infuse the hip parade with a girl group renaissance.

The debut album by the Quartet N-Vogue was titled Born to Sing.

You might say it was truth in advertising. The four women who made up the group, Terry Ellis, Cindy Heron, Maxine Jones, and Don Robinson came from

all over the United States and all possessed powerful voices. Each was capable of singing lead.

This was by design.

Envogue was conceived by a pair of producers and songwriters from Oakland, California,

Denzel Foster, and Thomas McElroy,

who'd already had success with the late 80s electro-funk groups,

Timex Social Club, and Club Nouveau. Look at all these rumors surrounding me every day.

I just need some time, some time to get away.

Foster and McElroy wanted to recreate the spirit of the early 60s girl groups, but with current production and post-Wittney Houston vocal talent.

This was at a moment when New Jack Swing, the genre that hybridized R&B singing and hip-hop production was taking over the charts both from

male stars like Bobby Brown and everybody's talking all this stuff about me why

don't they just let me live tell me why I don't know and female superstars like Janet Jackson.

...