FEATURE:
Something Kinda Funny
Spice Girls’ Spice at Thirty
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I don’t normally rewrite…
IN THIS PHOTO: Spice Girls in 1996
or repeat a feature so soon after the previous one. As Spice Girls’ debut, Spice, was released in Japan in September 1996, I did a thirtieth anniversary feature around that. Though its U.K. release date is 4th November, 1996, so many people would mark that as the actual thirtieth anniversary. This is an album that went to number one all around the world. It was this giant success that received mixed reviews. So many critics attacked the group and the album. Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell-Horner and Emma Bunton will obviously share words about the album to their Instagram on the day. In a recent column, Caitlin Moran asked for this Spice Girls reunion. I think that, after thirty years from their debut, there should be some sort of live performance. Would we even get a Glastonbury headline slot next year?! They would refute it and it seems a little unlikely, though it would be wonderful if there was this announcement that Spice Girls are headlining Glastonbury next year. That would also be in a year where we mark thirty years of their second studio album, Spiceworld. Many prefer that album, though I feel the legacy of their debut is bigger. In terms of that it was the arrival of this girl group that arguably shaped and transformed Pop in the 1990s. They inspired a generation of girls and young women. You can feel and hear the impact of their debut on modern Pop. There is an anniversary boxset coming out to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Spice. Classic Pop provide some details:
“To celebrate the 30th anniversary of debut album Spice, The Spice Girls are releasing The Singles Collection – the first-ever complete collection of all the group’s singles, including B-sides and previously unreleased recordings.
This year marks 30 years since the release of the band’s debut album, Spice, which went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. From Wannabe to Holler, Spice Up Your Life to Goodbye, The Singles Collection brings together the hits, original artwork, B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from The Spice Girls archive in a handbag-inspired box, finished in white holographic gloss and matt black foil.
With five brand new messages from each of The Spice Girls, The Singles Collection is available as two limited edition 14-disc box sets. The 7″ edition puts every single on coloured vinyl for the first time, paired with its original lead B-side.
This edition and a separate CD boxset feature previously unreleased recordings from The Spice Girls archive, including Do You Think About Me, one of the group’s earliest demos, available for the first time. The CD set goes even deeper, with an exclusive disc featuring four previously unreleased demos”.
Some might say that a reunion gig would copy Oasis. They reunited and toured the world. I don’t think we need a reunion tour. A one-off gig or festival appearance. I think the group are tight-lipped regarding any performances or marking thirty years. They genuinely might all be in different spaces. As I said recently, Melanie C is really the only member regularly recording and performing. She is ‘match fit’ in that sense, though it would take a lot of rehearsals and discussions before something came together. Something that would be worth the hype. And if that process had already begun, then we’d know about it. I remember November 1996 and Spice arriving. It was an instant sensation! Think about singles like Wannabe, 2 Become 1, Say You’ll Be There and Who Do You Think You Are. Mama too. They were absolute smashes! I have said a lot of this before, but an album that contains those timeless classics must rank alongside the best ever. Not that the non-singles are fillers and dwarfed. I always thought Last Time Lover or Something Kinda Funny could have been singles. They released four singles from that album – the last, a double A-side of Mama and Who Do You Think You Are -, so maybe it would have been overkill. There are going to be thirtieth anniversary features in the coming week or two. I hope people are kinder to Spice. It gets a slightly bad representation in some corners of the music press. Though saying it was a product or its time and the Spice Girls’ Girl Power slogan was fake and corporate. That they were one-hit wonders. Consider how much the songs from Spice are played thirty years later and how immensely enduring the album is, and you cannot overlook how important it is! One of the most important and best debut albums of its generation. Last year, uDiscover Music argued that Spice Girls’ debut planted the seeds for #MeToo. With its “infectious attitude, bags of drive, and no shortage of hits Spice Girls’ debut album took their message of empowerment around the world”:
“It’s fair to concede that Spice Girls were essentially an extremely proficient singles act. You’ll likely remember all of those great early hits. The saccharine “Mama” and disco-Europop fusion “Who Do You Think You Are” got parceled together as a double bill to – predictably – more chart-topping favor, in March 1997, but there are five other cuts that complete Spice.
Those songs, recorded with pop production team Absolute, ranged from the slinky shuffler “Something Kinda Funny” to the fragile ballad “Naked.” Perhaps only “If U Can’t Dance” – featuring a rap in English from Mel B, and Geri doing the honors in Spanish – and the pacey “Love Thing” truly captured the spirit of the singles. On a song like “Last Time Lover,” meanwhile, the R&B swingbeat – so dominant throughout the 90s – threatens to drown an interesting melody in a mid-Atlantic production treatment that somewhat dates this and the other album cuts. But perhaps those glorious singles – still on endless playlist rotation – so dominate our memories of Spice that everything else inevitably pales a little in comparison.
“Anyone can be a Spice Girl”
Absolute’s Andy Watkins and Paul Wilson were joined by Eliot Kennedy, Richard Stannard, Matt Rowe, and Cary Baylis on writing duties (with Stannard and Rowe featured on the most memorable “Wannabe” and “Two Become One”), but it’s important to note that the band shared credits on all of Spice’s tracks. This was no token business arrangement; Geri and Mel B were most consistently referenced as strongly shaping the compositions, but each member played their part. If Spice Girls wasn’t entirely a partnership of equals, everyone involved understood where they fit.
“Anyone can be a Spice Girl,” Emma Bunton announced in a TV ad to launch the record, and it was true that the five’s colorful image was almost as important in breaking the band as the music. The cartoon-like monikers adopted by each woman fast-tracked people’s interest. Emma’s “Baby”, Victoria’s “Posh”, Mel B’s “Scary”, Mel C’s “Sporty” and Geri’s “Ginger” were simply too succinct and successful to have been dreamed up in some marketing brainstorm. The throwaway captioning by a teen magazine just seemed to stick and was adopted by the band so successfully that the five soon rivaled the impact of the previous decade’s pop titans Michael Jackson and Madonna. No band since The Beatles had enjoyed such hysterical success on a worldwide scale.
But none of that focus on image detracts from the five fabulous pop singles and five largely successful album tracks that powered Spice to unprecedented success. Topping the UK charts for 15 non-consecutive weeks, becoming Europe and North America’s biggest album in 1997, and shifting a staggering 23 million copies worldwide to date, Spice is one of the most successful records of all time. It seemed so simple, but other acts’ subsequent attempts at the formula have largely fallen short.
Perhaps with a harder production edge and less charismatic players, Spice would have been a little-remembered light R&B project, but this dance/pop juggernaut – lasting a modest 40 minutes – can hardly do justice to the energy of that time. Coming just before the digital revolution (Spice Girls were one of the final acts to make their fortune largely from CD sales) the seeds of today’s #MeToo movement can be heard in the band’s simple call-to-action: “Girl Power.” How many of today’s marchers were schooled in that accessible, empowering message?
Revolutions aren’t always built on controversy. With infectious attitude, bags of drive, and a handful of classic singles, Spice Girls dominated pop culture in little over six months. Perhaps there’s a lesson for other game-changers: cut back the cynicism and unleash the charisma. This really was pop at its most politically potent”.
I guess quality is a subjective measure. People can turn their noses up at songs like Wannabe and call them empty or commercial (in a bad sense). But think about how they made people feel. There was so much division and elitism in the 1990s. Like music was this tribal thing. You could not like Oasis and Spice Girls. You were one or the other. I actually think that Spice is a more substantial and interesting album than Oasis’ debut, Definitely Maybe (1994). Even if this was Pop with a capital letter, that is not to say it lacked meaning, depth and nuance. Spice has aged really well, and I feel you can put the album on today and it would resonate. The production could well fit onto a modern Pop album. Spice is one of the most successful albums ever. Last year, Vice highlighted its record-setting prowess and legacy:
“Marketing and image aside, their debut album, Spice, dropped on November 4, 1996, in the U.K., and rapidly became a pop culture phenomenon. It first debuted on the U.K. Albums Chart the week of November 16, staying there for 15 non-consecutive weeks. Its first sales reached 114,000 copies. As of 2021, Spice had sold over 3 million units in the U.K. alone. Worldwide, it’s more like 23 million.
In February 1997, Spice was released in the U.S., debuting at No. 6 on the Billboard 200. It climbed to No. 1 and stayed for five weeks, selling 1.46 million copies within its first three months.
The fanaticism for The Spice Girls was compared to Beatlemania at the time. They had a similar rabid teen girl fanbase, but with the added bonus of 90s girl power sentiment. Putting The Spice Girls on the same pedestal as The Beatles might put some fans on edge, but they have more in common than diehard rock and roll fans may want to admit. Musically, not so much. Commercially? Absolutely.
Sure, one could argue that The Spice Girls didn’t do much to elevate musical artistry in itself. However, their entire image became a cultural touchstone for young people worldwide. These were stylish, popular, and effortlessly cool women who said, “If you wanna date me, you have to be cool with my friends, and if you’re not, boy bye.” An early bros before hoes, if you will, but not as annoyingly misogynistic. Boyfriends are fleeting, but friends are forever.
In 2021, The Spice Girls re-released Spice for its 25th anniversary. This put the album back on the U.K. charts, reaching No. 5. Spice25, which contained remixes and demos alongside the original tracks, sold only 7,798 copies at its release. Not quite the initial fervor The Spice Girls garnered in the 90s, but their legacy remains unchanged.
Spice has spent 95 weeks total in the Top 100 of the U.K. Albums Chart as of October 2022, with 44 of those weeks in the Top 10. As of that date, The Spice Girls also held the Guinness World Record for the best-selling debut album by a U.K. group”.
When I was at school and this album came out, my mates reduced Spice Girls to their looks and sex appeal. The question of who your favourite Spice Girl was often was about which one you fancied most. I feel that reductive attitude pervades. Whilst they were a sisterly and strong unit, I think the fact they were nicknamed – Sporty, Ginger etc – sort of made them seem like action figures or cartoon characters. In fact, all five members have their own personalities and talents. Perhaps not as recognised and discussed, the media did not often see the group as five distinct and fascinating individuals. In any case, I do think that Spice is a titanic and brilliant album with some of the best Pop of all time. Songs that defined a decade. I am wrapping up with Albumism and a recent feature. Like me, they marked Spice turning thirty in terms of the Japanese release. That was September 1996. Though, as a British group, we need to acknowledge the ‘true’ release date of 4th November, 1996. The thirtieth anniversary that is approaching:
“They depth-charge you out of the water with their debut album’s opening track “Wannabe” (which has a brilliant “one-shot” video—I put that in quotes because I’ve spotted two edits), slide into a great disco track (and I hate disco) on “Say You’ll Be There,” and then drift into a smooth R&B jam on track three with “2 Become 1.”
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.
Admittedly, it’s a sexually overt (yet not blatantly explicit) album geared towards tweens, what with songs like “Love Thing,” “Last Time Lover,” “Naked,” and the aforementioned “Wannabe” refrain “If you wanna be my lover / you gotta get with my friends.” Obtuse—as an adult, I get it—but as an adult with a few threesomes under his sheets, I take it in a different light. And don’t get me started on the “2 Become 1” lyrics.
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.
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 30 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 do sneakily feel Spice Girls will announce something about a reunion or some gig. I kind of hope that Glastonbury are keeping their powder dry and we will learn that they are headlining next year. Though that may be wishful thinking! There is this call from fans who were there in the 1990s and younger listeners who want the five to take to the stage. It is not really nostalgia and trying to reclaim a bygone age. One that is seen through rose-tinted glasses at times. Instead, it is getting these five friends who have gone through trials and bad days but will come together on the stage and perform these songs. Perhaps for the final time. We do not need another album or something bigger. Just take to a stage and perform these Spice classics. Who knows when or where, but fans all hope the extraordinary quintet will…
SAY they’ll be there.