XO release debut mini-album, Need To Know
Hotly-tipped XO have released their debut mini-album, Need To Know, via Polydor Label Group. The project features brand new focus track ‘Tell Me How It Feels’, latest single ‘Stacey (Take You Higher)’ – which featured as BBC Radio 1’s ‘Introducing Track of The Week’ – and more bangers from the rising UK girlband that you Need To Know. Having hosted their own month-long Colours residency in London this summer, on top of festivals like All Points East and Isle of Wight, XO have been invited to open for Turkish sensation manifest at the group’s first ever UK show at OVO Wembley Arena tonight, before appearing at Heaven (G-A-Y) this weekend.
On their debut body of work, XO give a clear and confident introduction to their sound, their personalities, and stake a claim as your new favourite girlband. The fearless five-piece (Emmy, Reanna, Shali, Summer and Zoe) put a modern, DIY twist on the lineage of classic British groups: think the unstoppable energy of Spice Girls – who recently co-signed XO after their immaculate cover of ‘Say You’ll Be There’ on BBC Radio 1 – as raised on the new gen of main pop girls like Tate McRae. Loosely inspired by advice columns the band would frequently spot in magazines – “20 Things You Need To Know In Your Twenties”, if they were songs – Need To Know is loud, knowingly rough round the edges at times. And already, Very XO.
The mini-album drops today alongside new focus track, ‘Tell Me How It Feels’. Setting their confessional, group-chat dynamic over powerhouse vocals summoning Little Mix, the girls wrote lyrics for the track in the unlikely inspirational home of Westfield shopping centre. “It’s a ballad,” says the band, “but in the sense of ‘you could have had this, but now you can’t’. That’s what makes it XO. We would have screamed this song at the top of our lungs if we’d had it, growing up.”
XO’s Need To Know chapter kicked off with literal call-to-action ‘Hotline’ – an imaginary advice centre for getting over an ex, but spiked with humour (“all our operators are busy being iconic!”). Second single, ‘Clique’, proved another XO mission-statement: penned by Ryan Tedder and Willow Kayne, here was a 2020s blueprint for female friendship accompanied by a video filmed in the same audition room the band first met in just two years ago. Recent single ‘Stacey (Take You Higher)’ proved XO’s biggest moment to date, setting a tongue-in-cheek tale of solidarity and sabotage to a euphoric dancefloor moment co-written by pop luminary MNEK. Across its seven tracks, the mini-album seldom lets the pace – or the choreo – drop: from the heated, noughties club pulse of ‘No Sour’ to breaking the patterns of ‘Human Nature’, Need To Know is a reel of five young women working it out, in life and in Pop. Poignant closer ‘Paper’ was written alone by the band on lessons learned along the way, whilst leaving the door wide open for what comes next (“it hurts to say it so I’ll put it on paper / saving it for later…cause I know she’ll be braver”).
Need to Know follows XO’s acclaimed debut EP, Fashionably Late, which featured a Charli xcx co-write (‘Real Friends’), landed early support across the likes of BBC Introducing, and saw the band earn their stripes up and down the country both at schools and then their own sold-out headline tour. Balancing part-time jobs with the pursuit of pop stardom, XO’s hustle has already earned them an impassioned audience, with songs that encapsulate the wider theme of feeling part of something – whether that’s the global girlband renaissance, a sisterhood, or just in on the fun. Need To Know is the sound of Girl Power made new in 2026. XO marks the spot.
Need To Know – Tracklist
- ‘Hotline’
- ‘Clique’
- ‘Stacey (I’ll Take You Higher’
- ‘Human Nature’
- ‘No Sour’
- ‘Tell Me How It Feels’
- ‘Paper’