Spicing up their lives: the road to girl power, fame and fortune Revivals: hits and misses The Spice Girls: then and now Even now, the scale of the Spice Girls success across the globe is difficult to grasp. Their first two albums, Spice and Spiceworld, each sold more than 20 million copies. And in this year of reunions, when bands such as The Who, with only two of the original members still alive, or Take That without Robbie Williams, can make a huge impact as touring attractions, the Spice Girls are likely to prove a significant commercial success.
Indeed the reunion of the five original Spice Girls together with their manager Simon Fuller represents the resolution of unfinished business. The band suspended operations in 2001, but Fuller had been booted out much earlier, in 1997, and Geri left soon after in 1998. Fuller has often talked about the unfulfilled potential of the group, and a reunion of all five plus him will be a chance not only to revisit past glories but also to achieve some kind of closure.
But what about closure for the rest of us? The business case may be clear cut, but whether a reunion is the right thing on aesthetic or artistic grounds is another matter. The Spice Girls were a group spectacularly locked in a moment.
They were young, glamorous, irreverent and fun, and it will be asking a lot of them to transport that kind of exuberant appeal on to a stage again now that they are all in their thirties. But I have no doubts that their music will stand the test of time. Think of how many of their songs you can still recall with absolute clarity Say You ll Be There, Mama, Who Do You Think You Are and, of course, Wannabe and remember that there is another generation of kids who have seen the Spiceworld movie, heard the songs and will be fascinated to see the group together for the first time.
The critics in Britain, and to a lesser extent America, will naturally be queuing up to rubbish them. And it is true that the Spice Girls have a lot to answer for. More than a mere pop group, they were a social phenomenon.
The way in which the group was assembled, through an audition process, and then put in a house together, where they were filmed (and even voted out one of the original members, Michelle Stephenson) unwittingly provided the blueprint for the world of celebrity culture that we (and they) now inhabit. Their bubbly enthusiasm belied a streak of ruthless ambition that took them to the top of the greasy pole of pop without any of them being ripped off. And they became ubiquitous to the point of overkill.
But history has a way of readjusting the stock of pop groups that seem irritating and irrelevant at the time. Abba, who came to fame after winning the Eurovision Song Contest, were derided as buffoons when they were still together: and even groups such as the Monkees, the original prefabricated four, have achieved a certain grudging critical respect in hindsight. The songs of the Spice Girls whose first album, let s not forget, was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize may prove to have a similarly surprising long-term appeal.
And if they can find a way to present themselves that recaptures the fun without making them look like idiots, they will be home and dry. Reunions always attract a certain amount of flak, and a Spice Girls reunion doubly so. But if it is such a terrible idea, then why all the interest?
When I wrote my book Wannabe I was asked, time and time again, why would anyone bother to write a book about the Spice Girls? But never, anywhere in the world, was I asked, who are the Spice Girls? The fevered speculation of a reunion that has rumbled on for years has been fuelled by continuing public fascination in the five girls as individuals.
They have become part of the fabric of modern celebrity culture. You can t turn back the clock, but at least now we can put the rumours to rest and see what they were actually all about. Let s hope it was worth all the fuss.
Wannabe: How the Spice Girls Reinvented Pop Fame , by David Sinclair, is published by Omnibus So which songs are you gagging to hear one more time? Some bodies of work date pretty well. Others fade like photographic paper exposed to light.
Before we get on to all the ways they influenced these times for the worse, we should dwell first and foremost on the fact that the Spice Girls were a pop group. Their existence was, at least notionally, predicated on making records that people might want to hear. And for a while they did, but then so did the Bay City Rollers, Bros and Westlife.
Once the fug of pheromones and hormones has evaporated, what is actually left? Listen to hits such as Wannabe, Viva Forever, Stop and Mamaand what strikes you is their flimsy production, threadbare tunes and the two Mels notwithstanding singing voices that no amount of autotune could render palatable. If you want to hear mainstream pop executed with sex, savvy, passion, humour and high songwriting values, you d be much better off with the songs that the Xenomania production team has been penning for Girls Aloud over the past five years.
Of course, the Spice Girls and the people around them would be quick to argue that without the girl power they ushered in, such groups might not have a ready fanbase waiting for them. But female singers existed long before Wannabe came out, and they didn t have the temerity to kid us that their mere existence made them pop s equivalent of Emily Pankhurst. During a four-year reign marked mostly by the utter lack of humility with which they carried themselves, the Spice Girls bellowed that wretched slogan so often that they began to believe that it meant something: yet under the weight of any examination whatsoever, Girl Power stood up as well as Oliver Reed and Keith Moon after a night in their local.
Inverviewed on the Saturday morning children s show Live Kicking, they claimed that they had received letters from children who had invoked this girl power thing to stop being bullied at school. One was put in mind of George Harrison shouting Hare Krishna! as his bedroom assailant advanced towards him: a novel idea but, in the real world, entirely useless.
But then, if the rubbish film they made is anything to go by, the Spice Girls lived not in the real world but in Spiceworld a realm of product placement and infinite merchandising possibilities. Though she was swiftly told to backtrack, Geri Halliwell s declaration that Margaret Thatcher was the original Spice Girl was just about the truest thing she ever said. The Spice Girls were Simon Fuller s first glimpse of the possibilities afforded by that most pernicious of modern phenomena, the pop franchise.
Later, of course, Fuller ploughed his talents into Popstars the programme that effectively started the continuing wave of prime-time talent shows that blight schedules to this day, and are partially responsible for coopting pop into the world of light entertainment. Before Girl Power, pretty girls would try to get a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by doing a bit of glamour modelling or dancing in nightclubs. After Girl Power, pretty girls elected to get a foot in the door of the entertainment industry by doing a bit of glamour modelling or dancing in nightclubs.
And why? Because Girl Power showed them that it was their right to do so! When I interviewed Mel B in 2000 and made the same point to her, she refused to countenance the notion that there may be any negative aspect to Girl Power: less still that any overlap between their Girl Power and feminism might be a good thing.
Feminism, she explained, is a bit more harsher. Far from being an antidote to Loaded laddism, the Spice Girls were a symptom of it. If you want an example of how a woman can subvert mainstream pop on the back of a radical agenda, try Beth Ditto of the Gossip.
But Ditto didn t form the Gossip because of the Spice Girls: the Arkansas trio came from the genuinely empowering Riot Grrrl movement that gained wider attention through bands such as Huggy Bear and Bikini Kill in the early 1990s. The Spice Girls legacy is far less spectacular. It has made pop another branch of the light entertainment industry, something that vacuous dolly birds can add to their portfolio alongside modelling and dancing.
The only Spice Girl who appears to have any awareness that their tenure might not have been an altogether good thing is Mel C. With a reasonably successful European solo career to maintain, Sporty Spice has said that her reluctance to be the one who prevents a Spice Girl reunion just about eclipses her reluctance to take part. For the rest of the group, there s little to prevent them from satiating a massive public nostalgia that I doubt is even really there.
Lest we forget, they offered to reunite two years ago for Live 8: and as a fabulously catty BBC source said: Live 8 isn t Party in the Park. Like Big Issue sellers and those homeless people who turn up at your front door with a tray of dishcloths, if the Spice Girls had any skill at all it was in using another agenda to sell you a poor-quality product. You weren t really buying The Big Issue, crap dishcloths and a pop record: you were, respectively, buying the fleeting gratitude of two tramps and a stake in Girl Power.
Why the hell would we want the Spice Girls back? Haven t they done enough damage already? Have your say Please note the maximum number of characters is 1000.
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