‘Girls5Eva’ Season 2 Music Takes Inspiration From Artists Like Olivia Rodrigo and Dua Lipa (Exclusive)

Girls5Eva is stepping into a new musical era for its second season as Summer (Busy Philipps), Gloria (Paula Pell), Wickie (Renée Elise Goldsberry) and Dawn (Sara Bareilles) get down to “album mode” following their success at the Jingle Ball in the Season 1 finale. Ahead of the Season 2 premiere on Thursday, May 5, the show’s cast and creators opened up to PopCulture.com about updating the music for the former one-hit wonders past the ’90s and ’00s. 

“You know, we made so much hay last year on songs that [Girls5Eva] had written in the past and be able to mine jokes and even musical pastiches based on when they were a hit in the ’90s and the early 2000s and that point of view of them being like, ‘Girl power,’ but this misogynistic kind of overview of the whole thing gave us a lot to work with,” executive producer Jeff Richmond told PopCulture. 

Coming into the second season with the band having to write their comeback album, Richmond said it was more about exploring musically the artists the characters would be influenced by today. “So there’s a lot of like stuff that’s been inspired by Olivia Rodrigo or Dua Lipa or Adele,” he explained. “It gave us all these different directions to go as far as styles go. … Because as opposed to being written by somebody else, this is stuff that they have to find from their day-to-day grind. So that’s kind of where the ammunition was musically for this season.”

Bareilles added to PopCulture that she had “so much fun” as a musician following a completely different path than “manifested in [her] real life.” The Grammy winner gushed of living out her inner girl group fantasy, “We get to play in this arena and that is really fun – to do choreography, costume changes, I mean, come on! This is like my dream fantasy that wasn’t my life path. So, to get to play and wear red sequin-like tuxedo dresses, come on, it’s the greatest.”

Goldsberry added that “dressing up together, choreography, harmony and big dreams is just not something that enough women get as they get older. And we’re hoping that … this is one of those shows that’s like, ‘Try this at home. Try this at home,’” with Bareilles chiming in, “We’re going to see so many new girl groups in their 40s.” The first three episodes of Girls5eva Season 2 drop Thursday, May 5 on Peacock.