Has Girl Power gone to All Saints' heads?

By DAVID LISTER Herald correspondent

Girl Power, which began a few short years ago as a demonstration of girl groups' ability to compete with and beat the boy guitar bands, has been redefined. It is now the power of girls to abuse and sack their fellow band members.

The Spice Girls famously went that way, with the band ostracising and ousting Geri Halliwell.

Now it appears that All Saints - the only other British girl band with the same degree of glamour, attitude and success - have developed their squabbling into a fully fledged rock'n'roll split.

A spokesman for the group said last night that a statement about All Saints' future was imminent.

It used to be that musical differences were given as the reason for a split. Now it is photo-shoot differences.

One source close to the group was quoted yesterday as saying: "Mel and Shaznay think the [Appleton] sisters treat the band like one long glossy magazine photoshoot."

All Saints developed from a meeting in Notting Hill's All Saints Rd of four pop wannabes - Shaznay Lewis, Melanie Blatt and Nicole and Natalie Appleton.

In the past four years they have had five number one hits, and have a new single out on Monday. But they have not shared the limelight as celebrities.

Nicole, 25, is pregnant with Liam Gallagher's baby. Natalie, 26, dates the Prodigy's Liam Howlett. Such extra-curricular activity generates column inches well beyond the New Musical Express. The sisters are viewed as the party animals.

Shaznay writes the songs. Melanie is the unofficial group leader and enjoys home life with her daughter. Neither is feted on the celebrity circuit as much as the two sisters.

Jon Harris, former editor of Select magazine, said: "Both All Saints and the Spice Girls lead pressure-cooker lives. They have kids at a very early age. They get divorced when they are 22. It's not something the middle-class media world can always relate to."

Three of the group have babies, which for understandable reasons, can slow down a girl group rather more than it does a boy band.

But the femininity doesn't mean there's no conflict. There have been reports of fist fights and a bashing over the head with a microphone.

Last November Blatt walked out before a live performance, but was persuaded to return.

Just before that the band called off a promotional tour of Australia and Japan, blaming illness.

At the Capital Radio Christmas party in London last month a row erupted between Lewis and Natalie Appleton over who was to wear a particular jacket.

Yesterday the music industry was buzzing with rumours that the Appleton sisters were about to sign with Warner Bros as a duet.

However, the group are still lined up to perform as a foursome at next week's World Sport Awards in London, with the organisers of that event delighted that they may be able to promote the event as All Saints' last gig.

The split would come at a time when the group is doing rather well. Their single Pure Shores was voted best song of 2000 in a poll by music TV channel VH1.

If the split goes ahead it is unclear which of the members will retain the name All Saints. What is clear is that none of them will be short of cash.

"They haven't made huge money because they never really cracked America," said an industry source close to the group.

"But they will certainly be millionaires."