How Christmas Ruined This Girl Group's Career (100% Clickbait)

Would you believe me if I told you that there used to be a girl group whose career was singlehandedly killed by their second single being released in December, forced to compete with the inevitable domination of Christmas music on the charts? No? Well you probably should because that is pretty much what happened to Mini Viva back in 2009.

Produced by Xenomania (both my beloved and my arch-nemesis, might get into it in a later entry) between 2008 and 2010, Mini Viva was a two-piece girl group made up by Britt Love and Frankie Connolly. Their first single, Left My Heart in Tokyo, came out as an underground release in 2008, and was only released commercially almost an entire year later in September 2009. The single became successful, reaching #7 on the UK Singles Chart, and I could only describe its style as "demented synthpop". If you ask me, it was way ahead of its time.

I can't attest to the legacy of this track given that I was not nearly old enough to have a recollection of it at the time. For that matter, I also did not grow up in the UK. What I can say though, is that even in the big 2025 they had this song available at every karaoke bar I went to in England. Surely I couldn't have been the only one clicking on it?

Tangents aside, Mini Viva would only release their next single, I Wish, in December 2009. Despite the song's whimsical nature, it failed to fit into the landscape of Christmas music charting at the time, and so I Wish peaked at #73. Around this time, an album sampler had begun to circulate and hype was being built among fans who got their hands on the leaks. 

The sampler tracks were the following:

1. Left My Heart in Tokyo
2. I Wish (original 4:20 version with different vocals compared to the single edit)
3. Say What You Feel (a mid-tempo track with r&b influences)
4. I'm Hooked (most similar to I Wish out of the bunch)
5. Emotions of Love (the closest we have to a ballad coming from Mini Viva)

The duo also released another song through their website, named Bedroom Viber, in August 2009, shortly before the official release of Left My Heart in Tokyo. There are mentions online of it being part of the album sampler, but I have been unable to find any proof backing it up besides the fact that most of us Mini Viva fans eventually decided to scrobble it this way on last.fm. This is another upbeat song by them with plenty of personality:

Bedroom Viber was also posted on MySpace back in February 2009 alongside another track named Breakfast Club. This second track unfortunately never surfaced in its entirety, and wasn't ever performed live either (unlike Bedroom Viber). This would be all we have on the first iteration of the album, which ended up getting scrapped as a consequence of I Wish being unsuccessful. Mini Viva then went on to record new tracks for their album and were on track for releasing it in August 2010.

The plan would eventually crumble, as the next single to come from the album, One Touch, released in May 2010, failed to reach the Top 100 on the chart. The plan had originally been to release a fourth single off of the album, but this never came to be and Mini Viva ended up splitting.

Here are some other interesting facts about Mini Viva:

• Mini Viva mentioned in an interview with Digital Spy that they had recorded a different version of what would later become Alesha Dixon's song The Boy Does Nothing. 
• Frankee went on to become a member of an r&b group named M.O in 2012. This didn't land very well with Britt, who allegedly went on a Twitter ramble expressing her grievances on Frankee. Can't seem to find the original tweets anymore but the general sentiment fans recall is her seeming angry that Frankee had moved on so quickly.
• Someone working with Xenomania scrobbled Mini Viva titles on last.fm, Abuser and Da Ho Chain. One can only assume these filenames were placeholders and were not intended to be the real titles of the songs.

I don't have as much material to yap about on this group as I did with Girls Can't Catch but these two are definitely in my top 10 girl group obsessions. One can only hope that there will be justice for them and Xenomania will somehow be convinced to release this album or otherwise share it publicly someday.