Shampoo (band)

Shampoo
Origin	Plumstead, London, England
Genres	Pop rock, pop punk, bubblegum pop, power pop
Years active	1993–2000
Labels	Icerink, Food, Parlophone, EMI
Members	Jacqui Blake Carrie Askew

Shampoo discography
Studio albums	4
Compilation albums	2
Video albums	1
Music videos	2
Singles	10

Shampoo were an English girl duo in the 1990s, formed by Jacqueline "Jacqui" Blake (born 23 November 1974 in Woolwich) and Caroline "Carrie" Askew (born 4 May 1977 in Plumstead). Their song "Trouble" reached number 11 in the UK Singles Chart.

Jacqui Blake and Carrie Askew were best friends at Plumstead Manor School, a secondary school for girls in Plumstead, London. In the early nineties they started writing Last Exit, a fanzine for the Manic Street Preachers, and later appeared in the video for "Little Baby Nothing". They also wrote a fanzine for Fabulous.

During this time they formed Shampoo, the name deriving from their schoolyard nickname of 'the shampoo girls', for claiming to be 'washing their hair' when turning down date requests.

Their first single "Blisters and Bruises" with the b-sides "Paydirt" and "I Love Little Pussy" was released by Icerink records (a short-lived label created by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs) on 7" pink vinyl in 1993. This and their following single "Bouffant Headbutt" received favourable reviews in the music press, such as the NME and Melody Maker, but sold few copies.

Whilst their first two singles were typical of the Riot Grrl bands then coming to notice, the following year saw the release of "Trouble" and the album We Are Shampoo which displayed a much more radio friendly sound, but still with much of their previous abrasiveness: "Dirty Old Love Song" panned Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston (whose "I Will Always Love You" had been the previous year's biggest selling single in the UK). "Shiny Black Taxi Cab" about a night on the town gone wrong (ending with a spoken section by the 'taxi driver' complaining to a new passenger about two drunken girls who had thrown up all over his cab the previous week). We Are Shampoo sold over a million copies, with the majority of sales in Japan and the rest of Asia.

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