The Charlottes were a female fronted indie pop

Indie pop

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...

 band from Huntingdon

Huntingdon

Huntingdon is a market town in Cambridgeshire, England. The town was chartered by King John in 1205. It is the traditional county town of Huntingdonshire, and is currently the seat of the Huntingdonshire district council. It is known as the birthplace in 1599 of Oliver Cromwell.-History:Huntingdon...

, Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

 in England, formed in 1988.

History

The band formed in 1988, initially as The Giant Polar Bears, comprising Petra Roddis (vocals), Garham Gargiulo (guitar), David Fletcher (bass), and Simon Scott (drums). After a debut single "Are You Happy Now?" in 1988, their debut album, Love Happy, was issued by The Subway Organization

The Subway Organization

The Subway Organization was an independent music label founded in 1985 in Bristol, by Martin Whitehead.-Indie Pop and C86:The label was associated with the Indie Pop movement and the seminal NME cassette tape C86, that included the track It's Up To You by the Shop Assistants, from the label's first...

 the following year.

They were a favourite band of John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

, for whom they recorded a radio session in 1989.

The band then signed to the Cherry Red

Cherry Red

Cherry Red is a London-based independent record label formed in 1978.-History:Cherry Red grew from the rock promotion company founded in 1971 to promote rock concerts at the Malvern Winter Gardens...

 label. In 1990, drummer Simon Scott

Simon Scott

Simon Scott is an English musician, best known as the former drummer in Slowdive and Lowgold and is now an electronic solo artist....

 left to join Slowdive

Slowdive

Slowdive were an English shoegaze band that formed in 1989. The band formed in Reading, Berkshire and primarily consisted of Nick Chaplin , Rachel Goswell , Neil Halstead , and Christian Savill...

and the band split up after releasing a second album, Things Come Apart, in 1990 and now records as a solo artist. Gargiulo later formed a new band, Barefoot Contessa.

Singles

• "Are You Happy Now?" (1988) Molesworth
• Love in the Emptiness EP (1990) Subway
• "Liar" (1990) Cherry Red