Sweet Female Attitude's Leanne Brown reflects on 25th anniversary of 00's club classic 'Flowers'
If you’ve been to any club in the past two decades, then you’ll no doubt know (and will have danced to) the classic track ‘Flowers’ by Sweet Female Attitude.
Released back in 2001, this year marks the 25th anniversary of the song which continues to be a playlist and dancefloor mainstay as its longevity has continued past the noughties.
To celebrate this anniversary, Leanne Brown of Sweet Female Attitude teamed up with Amex® Gold to reward residents of Islington with a surprise performance of ‘Flowers’ last week, after finding that locals there spent more money in florists than in any other London borough last year.
For this milestone, indy100 spoke to Leanne about the continued success of the club hit a quarter of a century on, how the song almost wasn’t released, her surprise Islington performance and her thoughts on Y2K fashion and music becoming popular trends again.
When asked how she felt about it being 25 years since ‘Flowers’ was released, Leanne admitted she couldn’t quite believe this amount of time had passed.
“It only feels about 10 years ago to me,” she said. “When you say 25 years, it's about a quarter of a century, it feels surreal, most definitely.”
Leanne surprising members of the public with her surprise performance of 'Flowers' in Islington.David Parry/PA Media
Despite this passage of time, you only need to look at Spotify’s stats to see the song is still beloved with over 81,554,422 streams on the Sunship Edit version which cements it as a timeless tune – and it is something Leanne remains grateful for to this day.
“I feel blessed because there's a lot of songs that came out around the time 'Flowers' did, which were absolute anthems, but you don't really hear them anymore. So, I feel very honoured that the youngsters still go for it, and I think the help from people remixing it has really solidified its mainstay,” she said.
The 45-year-old also credits the various remixes of the song that have been released over the years by artists such as Sam Divine & Curtis Gabriel, Krept and Konan, and DJ Spoony featuring the Sugababes, for keeping the track’s momentum going.
“They're helping keep it alive, because they've got much higher profiles than me, and they've kind of taken [the song] into their own hands and made it their own. It breathes new life into it, which has kept it going for this long”.
Looking back on the recording ‘Flowers,’ Leanne described it as a “very arduous” and “soul-crushing” process, not without its hurdles, but ultimately “worth it” with the enduring success it would go on to achieve.
“The song was actually written about five years earlier, and it was a case of going in one studio, getting it to a certain stage, then going into another studio with a different producer, developing it a bit more, then going into a studio with another producer, then putting their spin on it, developing it a bit more.”
In a world before social media, Leanne – who was still working her day job at the Jobcentre at this time - recalled getting a Digital Audio Tape (DAT) with their demos on and they “physically had to get a train to London and go knocking on doors hoping that a label will listen to what you've got”.
“We got to a point with it where we got no after no, after no. And we said, ‘Right, this last record label if they say no, that's it.’”
But the ‘Yes’ finally came when they took the record to Milk Records - though it isn’t lost upon Leanne that the song “nearly didn't come out or ever see the light of day”.
What are Leanne's favourite flowers? Lilies and hibiscusDavid Parry/PA Media
So when ‘Flowers’ took off, it reached a peak at Number 2 in the Official Singles Chart and remained in the Top 10 for five weeks, it’s fair to say this came as a surprise for the duo.
“We didn't expect it to take off as it did. It seemed to happen very, very quickly, and we weren't prepared,” Leanne revealed. “The song became a hit that quickly, from being released on only a few hundred copies, got released to DJs, and then within a month or so, it was a hit record, and we didn't see it coming”.
She added: “I felt like we were just plucked out of our day job one week and onto stages in arenas”.
Upon reflection, Leanne noted that they “weren't really prepared” when the song soared up the charts and explained other contributing factors that made emulating the success of 'Flowers' more challenging.
“We took our eye off the ball a little bit in terms of the follow-up song, the follow-up album, that all had to be rushed, as well as touring, promoting, interviews, and the travel in between,” the singer said candidly.
“I felt like we didn't manage to get the synchronization right to get a follow-up success in the way that ‘Flowers’ had. Plus, we moved to Europe for a year, and by the time we came back to the UK, the garage scene had pretty much died down”.
But as time has passed, it’s clear ‘Flowers’ cemented itself as a timeless track, beloved across the generations from Millennials to Gen Z. Out of all times she sang ‘Flowers’ on stage for the past 25 years, Leanne says one of her “most memorable” performances was at the 2022 MOBO Awards where she sang the song in a mash-up with Eliza Rose’s ‘B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)" and Sonique’s ‘It Feels So Good'.
This followed by her teaming up with Amex Gold to surprise Islington residents with a performance of ‘Flowers’ is also something the musician “will always remember”.
David Parry/PA Media
"It was funny because there were staff working there and passersby people stopped as they were going into the shops, and had a bit of a dance, babies were in prams, seeing what's going on. Then there was a team handing out flowers whilst I was singing... it felt like a scene out of ‘Love Actually’ if I'm honest!”
25 years after the Noughties track was released, the trend cycle has seen a revival of the Y2K aesthetic in both fashion and music – but what does Leanne make of this?
“I love the fact that's come back around, because - I'll be honest - I don't think I've changed my style since then! I'm sure I'm still the same. I always like to wear shiny stuff, furry stuff, anything that's slightly OTT,” the singer said with a laugh.
“I can still dig things out that I have that are older than my son, who's 24, and I can still wear them, and nobody knows that they're from 2000 or 1999 nobody bats an eyelid. My daughter wants to borrow some of my things because she thinks they're cool, and I bought them way before she was born - I'm glad I didn't throw my whole wardrobe away from back then!”
Over the two decades, the music industry has changed completely with the rise of social media and streaming, Leanne expressed how she “struggled to move with the times” since it “wasn't something we did back then” in the 00s. “There were always teams that did that, and then you turned up and did what you had to,” she said.
“But what I would definitely say to anyone up and coming now is be prolific. Always have content. Always be working on the next thing.”
“Do not come into this business for fame or money,” she continued. “You have to be in it for the love… Most importantly, be nice, because some people, when they get a little touch of fame, they change, and they become difficult to work with. People talk and people remember you by your behaviour.”
When it comes to making music in the studio, Leanne said to ensure “everyone's clear on what their contributions are, legally and business-wise, in case that suddenly becomes a hit record”.
As for the future, fans will be excited to learn that Leanne is heading back into the studio with her husband to work on remixes and new music.
"We’re going to release a covers album called Cover Girl, which is going to be the gig songs we do,” she explained, as well as “releasing an album of original material, the back catalogue of Sweet Female Attitude from 2001”.
In addition, we can anticipate a “fresh album from Sweet Female Attitude, as it consists today,” which features Leanne and her producer and DJ husband.
Leanne teamed up with Amex Goldto reward residents of Islington witha surprise performance of ‘Flowers’. Four ‘You do you, London’ billboards from Amex Gold have sprung up across the capital on January 8 and 9 to reward communities with free, locally supplied giftsbased on what Amex Gold Cardmembers spent more on than in any other boroughs within the last year.
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