M People (stylised as MPeople) is an English dance music band that formed in 1990 and achieved success throughout most of the 1990s. The name M People is taken from the first letter of the first name of band member Mike Pickering who formed the group. Pickering had been a member of Factory Records dance act Quando Quango, but became more noted as one of the original DJs at The Hacienda. Paul Heard was a member of acid jazz band Ace of Clubs, and Shovell had previously been in the collective Natural Life. The original plan had been to have a roster of different singers for different songs but having been spotted by Pickering and Heard, Heather Small became the distinctive vocalist of the group. She had been in the English soul band Hot House. which had released a number of critically acclaimed records without scoring any major success.
Their first release came in the form of “Colour My Life”, a limited white label pressing which got them some recognition, but it was the first official single “How Can I Love You More?” that gave them their first Top 30 hit and a following in and around the Manchester club scene, where Pickering was still DJing. Their first album Northern Soul provided other singles, including a full release of “Colour My Life”, “Someday” and “Excited”, followed by a re-release and repackaging of the album.
1993 started with the re-released and remixed single from 1991’s “How Can I Love You More?” which was released at the end of January and provided the band with their first Top 10 single, peaking at number 8. While this single was in the chart the band were working on new material for the second album to be released that autumn; a preliminary single, “One Night in Heaven” was released in the summer and peaked at number 6. It provided them with a dance/pop success that set up a bigger worldwide hit with the second single, “Moving On Up”. The album Elegant Slumming went into the Top 5 on release and peaked at No. 2, remaining on the chart until the following summer and later winning the band a Mercury MusicPrize. A further two Top 10 singles followed: “Don’t Look Any Further” in December, and “Renaissance” which was used as the theme tune to the BBC2 show, The Living Soap, sending the single to number 5 in the UK.
In 1994 and 1995, M People won the BRIT Award for Best British Dance Act, the latter as a result of the release of Bizarre Fruit. The first single from that album was “Sight for Sore Eyes” which climbed to number 6, helping the album to enter the UK Albums Chart and peak at No. 4 and stay in the Top 10 for four months into the following year. The second single from the album was “Open Your Heart”, which became their seventh consecutive Top Ten hit in two years. Their third single “Search for the Hero” was later used in the TV advertising campaign for the Peugot 406. The song got to number 9 in the chart. In 1995, the band embarked on their first world tour entitled the Come Again Tour and two more singles were lifted from a re-issued album: Bizarre Fruit II which charted and peaked one place higher at number 3; these singles were a remixed “Love Rendezvous” and “Itchycoo Park”. The former was the least successful single from the album charting at number 32, and the latter charted at number 11, although the choice of the latter song to cover drew negative comments from the media.
After touring and promotion of Bizarre Fruit II for 18 months the band took a break in 1996. The album, having been released in November 1995, did not leave the chart until April 1997, becoming one of the biggest selling albums of the decade. They made some outdoor live UK performances called the Summer M Parties in June 1996, at Crystal Palace, Alton Towers plus a televised performance on BBC1 in June 1996 from Old Trafford for The Crowd are on the Pitch: The Euro ’96 Extravanganza, where they performed to a crowd of 60,000 at party celebrating the Euro 1996 football championships.
In March 1997, lead singer Heather Small gave birth to her son. In 1996, the band founded their own record label, M People Records, to release the forthcoming album. In September they released the lead single “Just for You”, which peaked at number 8 on the chart and two weeks later, their album Fresco, was released and went in the UK Albums Chart at number two, going on to sell 1.1 million copies and certified platinum. Fresco also bore the single, “Fantasy Island” (number 33) and went on a fifteen-date UK Tour supporting the album to rave reviews. The final single lifted off the album was “Angel Street” which got to number 8 and earned them their tenth Top 10 chart hit in March 1998, making the band one of the most consistent hit-makers of the 1990s on both sales and airplay.
