"For my money, the best pop groups are girl bands," says Andy McCluskey, frontman of OMD and the mastermind behind Atomic Kitten.

"Boy bands are absolutely horrible. They only sell records because lovestruck girls have their poster on the bedroom wall."

Not the most sensitive observation, perhaps, but McCluskey - speaking to BBC News in 2010 - had a point.

With a few notable exceptions (Blackstreet, Five, One Direction), boy bands coast along on good looks and syrupy ballads that promise "Girl, I know you're the one, girl."

Their female counterparts, from The Ronettes in the 1960s to TLC in the 90s and Katseye in 2025, are more experimental, with more conceptual versatility and, frankly, better songs.

Just look at the anarchic energy of The Spice Girls' Wannabe, or the seven-part pop Frankenstein that was Girls Aloud's Biology and ask yourself, "Could Westlife have pulled that off?" (Hint: Not a chance).

But, for a long time, girl bands were the underdogs, dismissed as vapid and superficial. It took 41 years for an all-female act, in the form of Little Mix, to win best group at the Brit Awards.

The BBC documentary Girlbands Forever aims to set the record straight, celebrating all that melodic brilliance while revealing the darker side of the industry.

In the first two episodes, broadcast last week, Kelle Bryan of the 90s band Eternal recalls a gruelling boot camp where the band's diet was strictly controlled; while a tearful Melanie Blatt of All Saints describes being told to have an abortion in case her pregnancy jeopardised the band (she declined).

This Saturday's final episode focuses on the ever-changing line-up of the Sugababes; illustrating how callous the industry could be.

"It didn't really bother me that Sugababes had a revolving door, because sometimes the brand can be bigger than the individual, and Sugababes were a brand," opines Darcus Beese, former head of the band's record label, Island.

Looking at the group's 2009 line-up – which featured none of the original members – he makes a........

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