Library - Biographies

Band Members

Heather Small (vocals)
Mike Pickering (production)
Paul Heard (instruments)
Shovel (percussion)

Profile

M People are the credible face of that much maligned musical genre: commercial dance.

They make soulful, mainstream dance music for the masses, reaping them massive commercial rewards since their formation in 1991.

The main motivating force behind the group is Mike Pickering. As the legendary DJ of Manchester's now defunct Hacienda club, he was at the forefront of the late 80s house music boom in the city.

But, even by then, Pickering had been a long time player in the city's music scene. A former northern soul boy and sax player with early 80s outfit Quando Quango, he had worked in A & R for Factory Records, where he signed Manc luminaries James and the Happy Mondays, and been instrumental in getting Deconstruction Records off the ground - credited with releasing the first UK house compilation, North.

But his main contribution came from regular Friday Nude Night DJ spots at the Hac, where he introduced American house music to an eager audience from 1987 onwards.

By 1991, however, Pickering was tiring of DJ duties, particularly the progressive house trend in UK clubs - tribal, percussive house minus vocals.

It was at odds with his love of soul-inflected house music such as US garage and deep house. In response, he formed M People, recruiting multi-instrumentalist Paul Heard as co-songwriter, and former Hothouse Flowers diva Heather Small as vocalist.

Their first releases, Colour My Life and How Can I love You More (both 1991) vaulted the gap between mainstream, radio friendliness and the cliquey confines of club culture.

This was sustained with debut long player Northern Soul (1992), but their real breakthrough came a year later when they went more mainstream and uptempo with hits such as Moving on Up and One Night in Heaven.

Inevitably, the critics charged Pickering with selling out, bitter that this once most credible of DJ's was actually becoming commercially successful by pitching to a wider audience.

But - in true Manc non-conformist fashion - Pickering shrugged his shoulders and carried on regardless, secure in the knowledge that with his track record, he'd already paid his dues.

And why should he have worried. His music was head and shoulders above other commercial dance acts - one hit wonders, soon to become forgotten footnotes in pop music's past.

And, anyway, M People were pioneers, representing a new phenomenon: a band making pop music without pretence, that came not from a trad guitar, drums and bass set-up, but from the dancefloor eclecticism of soul, funk and house.

This new-style pop, with a commitment to real instrumentation, evidenced by their live performances, which were more rambunctious affairs than hitherto faceless dance acts standing silently behind samplers, showed acid house reaching adolescence and becoming co-opted by the big money music corporations, and a new, non-club going audience.

Their album of 1993 Elegant Slumming proved it was a recipe popular with the punters, winning them the Best British Dance Act Award at the Brits.

By now a four-piece, having added percussionist Shovel to their line-up, they continued to fashion slickly professional, soul-lite sounds with their next album Bizarre Fruit (1994), provoking a stunned and snobbish reaction when it bagged an award laden with critical credibility: the Mercury Music Prize.

The band were now big time, playing to audiences on worldwide tours of up to 10,000 people. The po-faced critics still dismissed them as handbag house for Phil Collins fans, but Pickering undeterred said in 1995: "The critics are middle-class, they don't like to see a working-class audience enjoying themselves."

After Bizarre Fruit, extensive touring, and the occasional compilation release, it was all quiet on the M People front, until their album, Fresco (1999).

A slight departure to gentler, R&B pastures, such as the single Just For You, it still contained enough formulaic uptempo, disco inflected tracks to satisfy their fans. A compilation, Best of M People was released in 2001.

Essential Album

Elegant Slumming (1994) - The band's breakthrough album is a superior slice of soulful dance music, containing strong melodies and a typically stirring vocal from Heather Small.

Reference: http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/bands/1990/mpeople.html