FEATURE:
Second Spin
Spice Girls - Spice
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THIS is an album that can really split…
IN THIS PHOTO: Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Adams of the Spice Girls, circa 1996/PHOTO CREDIT: Tim Roney/Getty Images
people down the middle. The Spice Girls released three albums in their career and their debut, Spice, arrived on 19th September, 1996. As it comes up to its twenty-fourth anniversary, it is a good time to re-evaluate the album. I remember when the album came out and, beforehand, we all knew about this girl group and the kind of hysteria they were generating. Some have compared the Spice Girls’ popularity with that of The Beatles in the 1960s and, whilst The Beatles and Spice Girls share very little in common, the sort of popularity the Spice Girls received can compare with the Liverpool legends. The group reunited last year to perform some concerts, that gained some positive reviews from some and some more average reviews elsewhere. Without Victoria (‘Posh Spice’) in their ranks now, it is a changed line-up, but I am not sure whether there are future plans for the Spice Girls relating to new music. To me, the group are very much best left in the past, in the sense that the songs captured a spirit of the 1990s - and a more mature and modern-sounding group would not compare with their debut best. Spice is a classic example of an album that sold by the tonne but, through the years, the reviews have been mixed. I have seen one, which I shall end with, that is a positive modern interpretation of Spice, but there is a divide. A lot of U.S. reviews from 1996 were quite negative, and I think there are media sources and people who didn’t like the Spice Girls then and don’t now.
Maybe they find the music hollow and the notion of Girl Power – which they coined and was everywhere when the Spice Girls broke! – was gimmicky and the group hardly sported the chops of their peers. Spice was recorded between 1995 and 1996 and, at that time, we were still very much in the midst of Britpop. By the time Spice came out, the best of Britpop had passed, but it was still very much in the air. When I was at school, most of my friends were into other bands, and very few liked the Spice Girls – it was mainly the girls that liked them. Maybe that is another reason why the Spice Girls did not have the same width and breadth of popularity as other girl groups such as Destiny’s Child, TLC, En Vogue, or even our All Saints. I think there was a very tight demographic (young girls), but I think their songs are a lot more wide-ranging than people give them credit for. One reason why I like Spice is because that, apart from a few filler tracks, there are a lot of big hits that stand up today.!Wannabe, their debut cut, was released in June 1996, and that song was all over radio at the time! One cannot deny the catchiness of the song, and I think it is one of the biggest anthems of the ‘90s. Say You’ll Be There, 2 Become 1, and Mama/Who Do You Think You Are were the other singles released from Spice, and the album combined aspects of Dance, R&B, Pop and Hip-Hop.
Spice reached number-one in over seventeen countries, and it became the world’s best-selling album of 1997; it sold 19 million copies in a year! Spice is the best-selling album by a girl group, and one of the biggest-selling albums ever. I admit that Spice sort of weakens towards the end – tracks like Something Kinda Funny, and Naked are not as strong as material elsewhere. Also, three of the huge singles open the album – Wannabe leads to Say You’ll Be There, which then is followed by 2 Become 1. It is front-loaded and, in terms of quality, I think a slight rearrangement of the tracks could have made for a stronger album. That said, non-singles like Last Time Lover are very strong and, at ten tracks that run in at less than forty minutes, Spice is a tight and satisfying listen. We have girl groups now – such as Little Mix -, but there was a time (from the early-late-1990s) when they were very much in vogue, and there was this great contrast between the U.S. girl groups and the British ones. It was inevitable that the Spice Girls would break America, and the fact that each member had their own nickname – Emma Bunton was ‘Baby Spice’, Geri Halliwell (she is Horner now) was ‘Ginger Spice’; Mel C was ‘Sporty Spice’, Mel B was ‘Scary Spice’, and Victoria Beckham (or Adams as she was known at the start) was ‘Posh Spice’ – meant that fans could pick their favourite, and Spice Girls were much more than a faceless band!
Perhaps the personas were pretty forced, but one cannot deny the sort of discussion the Spice Girls provoked. Even though me and my school friends were not massive fans of the group, we each had our favourite members – then and now, Baby Spice is the best! The Spice Girls were fully involved in the writing of all the songs. Halliwell in particular was clearly a fund of ideas for songs, arriving at sessions with her book of jottings, notes and miscellaneous scribblings which often produced the starting point of a lyric or a song title or just an agenda for the day's work. Although Spice was produced by Absolute, Andy Bradfield, Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard, the group themselves had plenty of input, and it was not a case of this manufactured group being directed every step of the way. It seemed like the group collaborated with the producers and there was a lot of experimentation in the studio. Whilst it is clear that some of the group were stronger vocalists than others – Mel B, Mel C and, perhaps, Emma Bunton were better singers than Geri Halliwell and Victoria Adams -, their natural bond and unity was their key strength. The Spice Girls recognised their solidarity as a group, which depended on maintaining parity in all departments, including the songwriting credits and the resulting royalties. Unlike manufactured Pop groups, Spice Girls were credited as co-writers on all of Spice’s tracks.
Despite the major success of Spice and the incredible sales, I think there were some in 1996 who were not convinced. At a time when there was Britpop and a lot of different scenes, Spice Girls definitely had their fanbase, but I think the group broke barriers and ground, and their songs are instantly catchy and fun. I don’t think you need to be a Pop fan to love Spice, as there is so much going on, and there are tracks that are impossible to resist! Reviews since 1996 have ranged from the wildly effusive to the negative, but I wanted to quote, first, from a Pitchfork review from last year that, whilst mixed, did offer some positives:
“Spice has its dorky and amateurish moments, but if nothing else, that should prove that the Girls had a claim to authenticity themselves. Rather than just a savvy way to get a cut of publishing royalties, the Girls had a songwriting credit on every song on Spice because Stannard & Rowe and Absolute—the two production teams responsible for the majority of the record—worked closely with them to craft each one. Andy Watkins, one half of Absolute, told Sinclair: “None of them are musicians... But the thing about all of them at that point was they worked so incredibly hard at it. They knew their shortcomings. And the drive—it was unreal”.
I want to source from two more reviews because, over the past few years, there has been new evaluation of Spice, given the reuniting of the Spice Girls and the gigs they played. Spice is one of the best debuts of the ‘90s, and I think many people should give the album a spin! There are a few weaker tracks, but the strength of the singles more than compensates for any shortcomings. This is what Albumism wrote when they tackled Spice in 2016:
“While there may be a few duds on the B-side of Spice, I can only blame the songwriting, not the singing, because these girls were on point. I’ve had to record three-part harmonies by myself and I found it nearly impossible as a singer; I can’t imagine doing a five-part harmony.
But they merged their sexuality with an array of female archetypes, all of which (hopefully) encouraged young girls to embrace “Girl Power.” The sassy redhead, the butch athlete, the strong girl of color, the prissy snob, and the girl who just wants to play. While fulfilling stereotypes rarely does anyone justice, I see them as a pop extension of the Riot Grrrl movement. Your parents might not take you to a Bikini Kill concert, but I’m sure they’ll take you to a Spice Girls concert. And the message is the same: girls can rock just as much as the boys if not more so.
IN THIS PHOTO: Rankin shot the Spice Girls for The Big Issue in 1996
Spice is an outstanding record that combines feminism with funk, hip-hop, and R&B. If you haven’t listened to it in the last 20 years, I highly recommend you do so. An hour was spent dancing in my living room before writing this article, after all, and I listened to it four more times. While I may have to listen to a few Slayer albums now to “cleanse” myself, it’s a killer fucking record and I was glad to listen to it yet again”.
I will leave things be in a bit, but I wonder if we will ever see a time when a group like the Spice Girls arrive and create that insane level of fervour! Maybe One Direction sort of gained a portion of the Spice Girls’ popularity when they arrived last decade, but I think we will never see anything like it again! Spice could have been a flop and an album that relied on hype, but I think it delivers. I want to bring in a review from AllMusic, as it is one of the more positive reviews I have read:
“Spice doesn't need to be original to be entertaining, nor do the Spice Girls need to be good singers. It just has to be executed well, and the innocuous dance-pop of Spice is infectious. None of the Girls have great voices, but they do exude personality and charisma, which is what drives bouncy dance-pop like "Wannabe," with its ridiculous "zig-a-zig-ahhh" hook, into pure pop guilty pleasure. What is surprising is how the sultry soul of "Say You'll Be There" is more than just a guilty pleasure, and how ballads like "2 Become 1" are perfect adult contemporary confections. The rest of the album isn't quite as catchy as those first three singles, but it is still irresistible, immaculately crafted pop that gets by on the skills of the producer and the charisma of the five Spices. Sure, the last half of the album is forgettable, but it sounds good while it's on, which is the key to a good dance-pop record”.
Spice contains many a stunner, and Wannabe alone is a song that one cannot help but sing along with and move to! As the track says: “Slam your body down…
AND wind it all around.