The Corrs frontwoman on their
UK No 1 hit Breathless, a song that is still influencing pop 20 years on
In 2000, the Corrs were unstoppable. The
Irish siblings welcomed the millennium performing at the UK’s flagship Dome itself and finally converted their European success stateside. Despite the ubiquity, says lead
Singer Andrea Corr, few really saw the band for what they were: accomplished musicians, not three sisterly pinups (plus Jim). “That’s why we made sure we played our instruments,” she says. “You’re better off looking like a grungy band to be taken seriously, and we didn’t look like that.”
Twenty years on from the release of their third album, the mainstream breakthrough In Blue, the objectification and dorky ridicule has dissipated as a diverse array of young musicians reclaim a band they loved as kids.
Taylor Swift put their song Breathless atop her Women’s History Month playlist, calling the Corrs “female professors”; the Danish black-metaller Myrkur said they introduced her to the classic Irish folk songs behind her new album, Folkesange; and Ed Sheeran said they inspired Galway Girl, the musical equivalent of selling coals to Newcastle. Most strikingly, the former Chairlift member Caroline Polachek has been doing an extraordinary live cover of Breathless that essayist Jia Tolentino described as “Enya-industrial”.