When they debuted in the early '90s, All Saints were part of the popular British girl group wave kicked off by Spice Girls. While Spice Girls were all about girl power and character image, the All Saints were music aficionados with a softer, more sophisticated brand tied less to their looks and more to their music.
The group came together in 1993 when Melanie Blatt and Shaznay Lewis began recording and writing at a studio on All Saints Road in London's Ladbroke Grove. The duo hooked up with R&B vocalist Simone Rainford and released a single for ZTT Records in 1995 before they...