Little Mix singles ranked

All 30 Little Mix singles, ranked definitively from worst to best

Petition to honour Sweet Melody as the national anthem


Every soul in this country loves and cherishes Little Mix. Your niece loves them and your nan loves them, and everything in between. Why? Because they’re salt of the earth, that’s why. Just yesterday I was grinning manically at my Twitter screen after seeing Jade tweet a book recommendation for The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye to their army of fans – many who are young and looking up to them for guidance. Little Mix never put a foot wrong in their allyship to the LGBTQ+ community, and in general the three women always come out standing up for what’s right. Couple that with the fact they’re three of the best vocalists in the industry, a discography that speaks for itself and you’ve got yourself one of the best girl bands of all time. And that’s not even just UK, that’s globally. They are icons. Here’s all 30 Little Mix singles, ranked from worst to best.

30. Cannonball

Why did The X Factor insist on forcing artists to release covers of songs that didn’t suit them in the slightest? What was the logic? Cannonball is an amazing Damien Rice song that the gals sing perfectly, but they would sing the phone book perfectly. Cannonball is just useless. The X Factor had the facilities to write their winners a big original song and literally never did. A waste of everyone’s time and energy.

29. Hair

This song is the audio equivalent of an ick for me. It makes my body recoil in fear having to listen to it. The production is horrible, the melody is annoying and everyone involved is better than this. A low point.

28. Change Your Life

Something about Change Your Life just feels off. I think it’s the weird string bits in the verses that just set the whole thing off to a bad start. It sounds like a Glee original song, and I mean that in the worst way.

27. Word Up!

Why is it girl group national law that they must release a naff cover of a song for charity? Who imposed this rule and why do we uphold it? Quickly! It’s way better than Sugababes X Girls Aloud and The Saturdays’ efforts, mostly because of the sublime harmonies, but it’s still a completely unessential contribution to the Little Mix cinematic universe.

26. Only You

A VERY 2018 collaboration between Little Mix and Cheat Codes that felt quite trendy at the time but sounds like chart chasing fodder today. Which is exactly what it was, to be honest. Forgotten and lost to the pop ether.

25. Black Magic

You might not want to hear this, but I do not care. Black Magic is not a good song. Unless you are under the age of seven. In 2015? Sure. A little perky pop banger that whilst it was quite juvenile had some big commercial success and lived rent free in my head. Today? Unbearably annoying, and Jesy hates it. As do I!

24. Love Me Like You

I hated whenever Little Mix would dabble in this faux, 50s era America, doo wop hell sound. It lurked on so many album tracks back in the day, and unfortunately on this single too. THANK GOD they’ve stopped. Leave it to Meghan Trainor where it belongs!

23. How Ya Doin?

Huge step in the right direction for the Little Mix ranked singles here. Pretty solid stuff, but not a song that sounds like it was destined to be a big single and it’s kind of clear why its hardly an iconic part of the Little Mix discography, despite the fact it literally features Missy Elliott.

22. No Time For Tears

Jesy Nelson’s last release with Little Mix was on this track by Nathan Dawe, a song that seemingly exists to soundtrack ITV 2 adbreaks. It’s alright! Does it bang? Yes. Is it special? No.

21. Kiss My (Uh Oh)

Kiss My (Uh Oh) never fully breaks iconic ground, but the Little Mix girls collaborating with Anne-Marie was always going to result in them coming out on top. They are infinitely more interesting and they radiate star power, even when the song’s most special bit is its sample of Lumidee’s Never Leave You.

20. Little Me

Little Me is the kind of song Little Mix should have released as their X Factor winner’s single. It’s stirring and on brand for everything Little Mix stands for in their ethos, and even though it doesn’t stack up against their bigger hits, it’s a decent empowerment anthem. The clap breakdown section near the end is great.

19. Bounce Back

Bit of a weird one, Bounce Back. Do I like it? Yes, I think I do. Where does it place in the world of Little Mix? What is the context for Bounce Back? It just sort of floats about and exists. Nobody’s favourite, but a decent song nonetheless.

18. Think About Us

A bit of a forgotten gem, this one. The chorus is forgettable but the verses are spectacular. Love the pace of them and the way they build, and Jesy makes amazing use of her low register. Ty Dolla Sign brings a grand total of nothing to the table, but I think it’s a pretty underrated Little Mix song overall. About mid-tier when it comes to Little Mix singles ranked.

17. Wings

Forget Cannonball, this is Little Mix’s REAL first single. And what an intro to them as a pop group it is, tbh. Huge vocals, inspirational message vibes and a straight-to-number-one-debut. Sure, they build on Wings in every way going forward and evolve their sound to much more interesting and mature places, but if this song wasn’t so bloody good we’d never get everything that’s been ranked higher than it. Give Wings its respect!

16. Secret Love Song

One for us gays. I prefer the none Derulo edition, but Secret Love Song is still an incredibly powerful Little Mix ballad. Because how can it not be? The lyrics resonate with so many of us. I’m not a particularly sentimental person, but you’d have to be pretty stone cold if you’re LGBTQ+ and don’t feel moved with a lot of the lyrics in Secret Love Song. We’ve all had that tryst or fling where the party isn’t confident telling the world they’re queer yet.

15. Reggaetón Lento

Bit of a banger this one. A random collar, but one I welcomed with open arms and still find myself returning to for a boogie when the moment calls for it. The gals sound great over this instrumentation, and to be honest they absolutely steal the show from CNCO vocally and charismatically. It’s pretty great. Transports me right back to that summer of 2017.

14. Love (Sweet Love)

I just think it is deeply iconic of the hardest working women in the industry to have time to create a song and video this beautiful when two thirds of them are heavily pregnant. They are actual inspirations. This song really stands amongst their best, and that’s important considering its their first completely new Jesyless release that isn’t a Galantis, Guetta or Anne-Marie feature. Love (Sweet Love) has this gorgeous 90s groove to it that just makes it irresistible from first listen. It’s brilliant.

13. Heartbreak Anthem

HYELLOW IT’S ME YOUR EX! Scripture. I stupidly and deeply idiotically wrote this song off as generic and nondescript when I first heard it, a la No Time For Tears. But Heartbreak Anthem is nothing like No Time For Tears. It’s stirring, exciting, fun and has endless replay value. Perhaps a personal note, but at Manchester Pride 2021 you couldn’t move for hearing Heartbreak Anthem, and for me it became an unofficial theme tune of the weekend. It was a GREAT weekend, and Heartbreak Anthem is truly dancepop greatness.

12. Salute

Salute is like Little Mix’s answer to Run The World (Girls). It’s very good and actually quite slept on, would definitely make a case for this one being a bit ahead of its time. Salute is quite coolly produced and stands out amongst their earlier output tonally, and I dunno if their audiences were fully ready for this sound yet. But it’s incredible, and Leigh-Anne dominates the song and video with her excellence. it’s Leigh-Anne’s world and we’re all living in it.

11. No More Sad Songs

I think it’s a testament to how good the top 10 ranked Little Mix singles are that a song as excellent as No More Sad Songs is just missing out on a place. This is an excellent song from Glory Days, an album where it really felt Little Mix hit their stride with not one single missing the mark. Machine Gun Kelly, in a pre rock star Megan Fox era, actually does a decent job on his verse and the whole song has this breezy coolness to it that has helped it stand the test of time.

10. DNA

The highest ranked of the early days Little Mix singles, and with good bloody reason to be honest. Cinema. Simply cinema. The drama of DNA is spectacular, the vocals are immaculate and it’s a song that stirs me inside and makes me feel like I’m in a Marvel film. It is the Little Mix equivalent of Ego by The Saturdays. The best bit is after Leigh-Anne’s middle eight where it goes into the gothic wails and Perrie’s huge WOAAAAH! That’s pop music, baby!

9. Woman Like Me

Woman Like Me is great, and I will take to task any naysayers of its lead single banger power and any naysayers of LM5 in general. It was a great album! But the consensus seemed to be that it was a flop and dead on arrival before it even arrived. I love Woman Like Me, I love everyone’s low register vocals. I love Nicki’s verse despite the incredulous lyric “my daddy is Indian, swish all this curry”. I think it sounds cooler a few years later than it did on release. Dare I say underrated? Yes, I do dare.

8. Confetti

A banger from start to fin! A wow. The first ever Jesy-free wow. And Jade, Perrie and Leigh-Anne made damn sure we all knew full well that Little Mix would be fine and thriving as a newfound trio. Confetti was always a great album track on the record it shares a title with, and the single mix with Saweetie is even better. Excellent chorus, terrific music video and a pre-chorus from Leigh-Anne for the history books.

7. Shout Out To My Ex

Shout Out To My Ex is Little Mix’s signature song. It is them at their most Mix-y, cheesy, girly, full of a juvenile girl power that doesn’t feel evolved fully to womanhood but one with raunchy enough lyrics to stand above the more child-like songs that came before it. It’s aged in a way that Black Magic never managed to. It’s an instant good mood maker, with too many iconic lines to quote. But the most iconic is Jesy’s historical “oh I deleted all your PIYUCKS!” Huge commercial success because of course it was. How could it not be? It’s anthemic. A stadium filler.

6. Power

There’s a ferocity to Power that’s hard to match. I’m not sure they’ve ever matched it actually. They came on this song mad as hell! The growling vocals, the searing lyrics, the revving engines. Everything about Power burns rubber. The ultimate Little Mix gym song, and if you don’t believe me, try it out on the treadmill. You will feel unstoppable. And that’s the point, it’s frequently Little Mix’s point really, that they’re trying to make you feel as Power-ful as they feel when they belt out anthems like this. Huge. And Stormzy kills it.

5. Holiday

Holiday is exactly the song I needed to hear in the grips of the Covid pandemic last year. Pop music as escapism of the highest order. We, of course, could not holiday. But hearing this song takes me anywhere I need or want to be in the world. And I love the structure of a song around the theme of how the person you’re in to can make you feel like you’re on holiday. It’s emotive and really resonates with me. But most importantly, it’s a truly brilliant pop song. Its double chorus hits so hard, the vocals are amazing and there’s a very good reason why all four Confetti singles are ranked so highly – Little Mix did their best ever work on it.

4. Touch

I mean this with all due respect, but Touch was the first time in their whole careers where Little Mix truly sounded cool. They were no longer a girl band for kids that came from The X Factor, they were out here making club ready pop singles like Touch that absolutely slapped the tits of everyone. Straight, gay, man, woman and everything in between were getting their life to Touch whenever they heard it. It’s got that 2016 production vibe that keeps it a bit of the time, but that mid 10s pop sound was huge for a reason – it’s golden. A massive banger, and a bonafide LM classic.

3. Sweet Melody

As soon as the world heard Sweet Melody, there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind it would be huge. A number one hit on first listen, and a song that I knew would stand the test of time against ranked Little Mix singles. Not a second of MNEK penned Sweet Melody is wasted. The lyrics are a career best, the “doo doo doo” motif is iconic, the chorus is huge, the verses are even huger (“he would lie, he would cheat, over syncopated beats!”) and I do not have words in my vocabulary to express how amazing Jade is when she starts this song off. And that’s before we get to the absolutely euphoric bridge of VOCALS. It’s so good. I will dance to this song for the rest of my life.

2. Break Up Song

I think Break Up Song is a really, really, really special song. The full 80s synthpop fantasy was a new direction for Little Mix, and one they all compliment so perfectly. It’s a song that’s as euphoric as it is melancholy. It’s hard to choose a favourite bit. The post chorus “another kiss, under the lights” bit is so painstakingly wow. The “ahh ahhh ah hoo” bits that populate the instrumentation in the verses? A heavenly touch. But of course, we must discuss the vocals in that middle eight. Career best for both Jade and Leigh-Anne? I certainly do think. Bloody marvellous. Only one remains on the Little Mix singles ranked list…

1. Move

Let’s be real, there’s a sell-by date on girl groups. Little Mix were the favourites to leave first on The X Factor live shows. The odds are stacked against girl groups. The tabloid press want them to fall out, they want them to go solo, they want drama. They want to dissect their bodies more than the music. As a lead single for a sophomore album, Move proved to every single person in the industry and beyond that Little Mix’s success was no fluke. They are EXTREMELY talented.

Move is a complex beast of a record, and the kind of song that can only be done by four people in complete control of their vocal ability and prowess. It’s phenomenal. The way it builds? The layers? The harmonies? All immaculate. What makes Move so special is that there isn’t another girl group in history who could have recorded it and sang it like Perrie, Jade, Jesy and Leigh-Anne. It is not just the best Little Mix single, but one of the greatest girl group songs of all time.

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