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The
Spice Girls will be remembered as the most
successful all girl pop band of
the 1990s. Their single Wannabe became an
anthem for ‘girl power’
amongst a whole generation of female
teenagers in Britain.
In
1993 Geri Halliwel, Melanie Brown, Victoria Adams and Melanie Chisholm
answered an advertisement in a newspaper.
Talent scouts
realized that they
had found a group of girls who wanted
fame. The group was named ‘Touch’ and
when one of the group, Michelle,
quit, Emma
joined as the youngest member.
Emma had been a friend of Victoria
since the age of ten.
The relationship with their managers
did not last long. The managers wanted
to
sack Victoria for not being
talented enough. The girls thought their
managers were the ones lacking talent and sacked them
instead. ‘Girl Power’
was born.
During the summer of 1996 the Spice Girls became more and more famous as
their first single, Wannabe, went to Number 1 and
stayed there for seven
weeks. They became the first all girl group to go to Number 1 in Britain since
the Supremes in 1964. Other singles from their first album became hits and
the album, Spice, sold
over 22 million copies
worldwide. The girls
were as famous as they had always wanted to be.
The
girls became known by their
nicknames. Geri Halliwel (Ginger Spice), Melanie
Brown (Scary Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), Victoria Adams (Posh Spice),
and Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice). Many people think these names were
made
up by the group as a gimmick,
but in fact these names were used in an article
about the girls, and
have stuck ever since.
The Spice Girls’ fame touched people outside the music world. Nelson Mandela
met them and said, ‘This is one of the happiest moments of my life.’ Prince
Charles gave them tea at home with Prince William and Harry. Mel C said, ‘I
felt like Royalty for a day.’
But
fame has not been easy for the Spice Girls. In 1997, they sacked their
manager and many thought that the group would not last without him. Then in
1998 Geri Halliwel left the Spice Girls
amid huge publicity.
Once again, the
critics said that the group would be lost
without Geri’s brains.
Despite the setbacks, the Spice Girls
stuck together and
moved on. Victoria
married England footballer, David Beckham, and Mel B married a dancer
within
the group. Spice babies
were born – Mel B’s daughter was called Phoenix Chi
and Victoria’s son was called Brooklyn Joseph,
after the place in which she
found herself pregnant.
It is obvious that the Spice Girls
kept on growing up:
ten years after the
release of
their debut single, they were voted the biggest cultural icons of the 1990s
in the UK.
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