Spice Girls

Spice Girls is the name of a vocal group of pop British formed in 1994, composed in the beginning of five singers and dancers: Victoria Adams (become since Madam Victoria Beckham), Melanie Brown (known as Mel B), Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm (known as Mel C) and Geri Halliwell. Of 1996 with 1998, date on which Halliwell chose to leave the formation, the group was a phenomenal success, which was worth to him to be often compared with the Beatles. In 2001, after having recorded only one album with four, the remaining members decided to take a pause to devote themselves to their respective careers solos. In 2007, the five Spice Girls announced their meeting for a great world tour. With more than 76 million sold discs, they to date remain the Girls band which met the most success.

Biography of the group

Beginnings

The group, initially called " Touch" , in March 1994 following a casting by classified in the newspaper The Stage is formed. Approximately 400 candidates are auditioned.

Among them are retained: Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell and Michelle Stephenson. The five young women will follow courses of song and dance, in order to record a first disc. At the end of a few months only, Michelle Stephenson leaves the group. Indeed, his/her mother being reached of a grave disease, it prefers to turn over to her studies to be able to devote itself to it. One will learn later, according to the dires of Chris Herbert, the first manager of the group, that communicative alchemy existing between the other girls had not taken with Michelle, who remained rather with the variation.

After the departure of Michelle Stephenson, their professor of song, Pepi Lemer, presents one of his pupils to them, who becomes immediately his replacing: Emma Bunton.

To facilitate work and to cultivate a group dynamic, the girls move in the same house, where they will live and repeat together several months during. The group changes soon name to baptize " Space" then " Spice Girls" (an American rappor bearing the name " already; Spice" at the time).

Dissatisfied with the direction taken by their first manager (wearing of identical clothing, songs with the water-of-pink…), Spice Girls decide to do without the services of Chris Herbert, and to find new: it is about Simon Fuller, former manager of Annie Lennox. With its assistance and after having knocked on the door of several recording companies, they obtain a contract at Virgin. In 1995 thus the recording of their first album starts, Spice .

Spicemania

In July 1996, after having made a first round of the clubs in England, Spice Girls leave their first individual, Wannabe , against the will of their recording company. Indeed, Virgin Records wished to privilege the song Love Thing as first individual but ends up yielding. In the doubt, only 50.000 specimens are initially created. With surprised of Virgin, the song causes a true tidal wave. It rises directly in the third place of the English charts, for then taking the head of the classification eight weeks of at a stretch. On the whole, Wannabe will be number one in more than thirty countries. The video clip has the same effect: the English emission The Box receives telephone calls per thousands claiming its diffusion.

The rise of Spice Girls is consequently fulgurating. The same year, in November, they leave their first album, Spice , which is also an extraordinary success (18 million specimens sold in the one year space; 23 million albums will be sold on the whole). Does the group connect the tubes ( Say You' L Be There , Who Do You Think You Are? , 2 Become 1 …) and fact of moving crowd in the whole world. Spice Girls are the subject quickly of many derivative products, whose sales are colossal. Their success takes the proportions of a true social phenomenon, which one called Spicemania (in reference to the Beatlemania), and leads them to meet personalities like the Prince Charles or Nelson Mandela.

The media seize the phenomenon. The musical magazine English Top Off The Pops goes until giving to each member of the group of the nicknames which are immediately adopted by the fans and quickly make the round the world tour: Emma is thus renamed " Spice" baby; , Victoria becomes " Posh Spice" , Melanie C, " Sporty Spice" , Melanie B, " Scary Spice" , and finally Geri, " Ginger Spice".

In 1997, at the same time as they prepare their first film, Spice Girls record a new album, Spiceworld . Appeared the same day in the whole world, it is sold remarkably well (7 million specimens run out in two weeks, a record), in particular thanks to the tubes Spice Up Your Life and Too Much . In October 1997, the group gives its very first concert live to Istanbul, benefitting from the occasion to present the titles of the new album.

Against any waiting, few before the publication Spiceworld at the beginning of November, Spice Girls returns suddenly their manager, Simon Fuller. They will explain thereafter why the requirements to manage to them, in particular in term of calendar, were not appropriate to them any more and that they wished to take their independence. Geri Halliwell is essential then like the nonofficial leader of the group. In addition, Spice Girls play their own part in a feature film, Spice World, the film , left in December 1997. The film, accommodated hard by criticism, proves to be a business success, at least in the anglophone countries: number one of the British boxoffice, number 2 of the American boxoffice, it will add up receipts of approximately 80 million dollars.

Always it is that with the ceremony of the Brit Awards of February 1998, whereas Spicemania seems to beat full sound, Spice Girls undergo the competition of the All Saints, a Girls band that the media present like their rivals and who gains the prices of the best song and the best video clip; Spice Girls, which had gained these rewards the previous year (for Wannabe and Say You' L Be There ), set out again however with a trophy honouring their phenomenal record sales (" Best selling British album act").

Always in February, they start a world tour, the " Spiceworld Tour" , which starts with a concert with Dublin. The near total of the tickets were sold in hardly two weeks. In France, the round spends in March by two dates to the Zenith of Paris, in Marseilles, in Lyon, then two new dates are added to Paris-Bercy in May, vis-a-vis the importance of the request. Although always member of Spice Girls, Melanie B records a duet with Missy Elliott, I Want You Back , which will rise in the first place of the English charts.

At the end of May 1998, whereas Spice Girls are in full round, Geri Halliwell leaves the group (because of dissensions with the other members, she will say) and launches out in a career solo. Spice Girls remaining finish to four their round, which is completed in September 1998 by a concert with the Wembley Stadium.

After-Geri Halliwell

Since 1998, the four remaining members record discs separately, without to leave the group (Melanie C will make in particular a duet with Bryan Adams) and take part in the official reception of charity " Pavarotti & Friends 1998" of Luciano Pavarotti.

Part of the media estimates whereas Spice Girls will have less success with four and count on the nearest separation of the group. Always it is that at the end of 1998, Spice Girls record new individual, Goodbye , which becomes the tube of Christmas 1998 in Great Britain. After 2 Become 1 in 1996 and Too much in 1997, it is thus the third time of at a stretch which they occupy the first place of the English charts with Christmas (very coveted " Christmas number one"), a record which they divide only with Beatles.

However, in 1999, Spicemania seems to belong to the past, the group becoming more discrete in the media. Although they start to record some songs for their third opus, the girls devote themselves from now on mainly to their projects in solo. Melanie C prepares its first album, Northern Star , which leaves at the end of 1999 and will be sold with more than 800.000 specimens in England. Emma Bunton leaves individual with the group Chock-Chock Out, a resumption of Eddie Brickell entitled What I Am . As for Victoria, her topicality is then especially polarized around its marriage with the footballer David Beckham who does the one of the British press. The Beckham couple becomes little by little the center of attention of all the tabloids.

In February 2000, Spice Girls receive with the ceremony of the Brit Awards a trophy honouring their contribution to the English industry of the disc (" Outstanding contribution to the music industry"). The media await a possible return of Geri Halliwell within the group to mark the occasion, but Spice Girls appear without it on scene and thank officially it. " Without it we would not be aujourd'hui" there; , Melanie B will declare.

Emma, Melanie B, Melanie C and Victoria finish recording their third album, Forever , which leaves finally at the beginning of November. The first individual one, " Holler" (left in certain countries in double-faced cloth with the title " Let coils lead the way") between directly number 1 of the English charts. It is the ninth individual one of Spice Girls to take the head of the classification. However, the album will not have the success of both opus recorded with Geri. The girls appear very seldom together and give some interviews separately to promote the disc. It will be learned later that the group (in particular Melanie C, itself in round solo at the same time) did not show any more as much motivation. The careers solos become definitely priority compared to the group. Meanwhile, hardly one month before the exit of Forever , Melanie B leaves it also an album solo entitled Hot .

At the beginning of 2001, Spice Girls decide to put between brackets their career as a group, without however separating officially. One will not re-examine them together before the year 2007. In solo, they published with them five twelve albums and more than fifty individual, which more or less met success in England as in the rest of Europe, but without comparison with phenomenal success of the group.

Since 2004, rumors concerning an end of the pause of the group and a return of Geri were constantly relayed by the British press. They all are contradicted until June 2007 when Melanie C, last refractory on a return, accepts finally the idea…

The come-back

The five Spice Girls announce officially on Thursday, June 28, 2007 their reformation for a world tour. Their round must begin in Vancouver on December 2nd. Moreover, Greatest Hits will be born from here the end of the year.

The round, of which all the dates were not stopped yet, will make stage in particular in New York, London, Beijing, Madrid, Sydney, the Cape and Buenos Aires, but no concert seems envisaged in France.

They will make also an appearance in Toronto in Canada, which was named Spice City thanks to all the votes of its fans.

The round wants to be a " merci" with the fans, as specify it Spice Girls for which it will act especially of " to celebrate the passé" , even " so that our children see us in Spice Girls" , dixit Victoria Beckham. It is true that four of Spice Girls are from now on mothers (Victoria and also Mel B, Emma and Geri). Still few details filtered as for the spectacle, always is it that it is Jamie King which was selected as director and choreographer. This last in particular worked with Madonna on her round Confessions Tower and recently declared: " To collaborate with Spice Girls is a unique opportunity of crér a show live really emblematic. To reintroduce in the world without any doubt an event inoubliable." will be;

Documentary two hours realized by Bob Smeaton (in particular at the origin of documentary the " The Beatles Anthology") in December will be also diffused, and will recall all the career of the group.

A phenomenal success

A success without precedent for a female group

The group is with the 21^ème place of the classification of the best world record sales, with 76 million sold discs (the first are the Beatles). They remain the singers who sold the most discs for if small number of albums published, namely three; as comparison, Madonna sold 250 million discs with 17 albums published.

The first individual one of Spice Girls, Wannabe , appeared in 1996, were classified number one in more than 30 countries. The song is directly classified moreover eleventh with the hit-parade American; no nonAmerican group and beginner had directly reached this level since Beatles, whose song I Want To Hold Your Hand had been classified in twelfth position of the charts in 1963. The first album of Spice Girls, Spice , appeared in 1996, was sold to 18 million specimens in one year (but their record was beaten thereafter by the original soundtrack of the film Titanic , composed by James Horner). Another record, the album Spiceworld was sold to seven million specimens in the two weeks space.

The group can be also prevailed of rounds throughout the complete world posting, of two albums at the head world sales, of 10 individual at the head of the sales and to be at the derived origin of a broad product range: 50.000 pairs of platform-shoes (high-heeled shoes compensated) sold, 100.000 clothes, of the headstocks Barbie S, the deodorant, soda, of the cameras, a video game, lollipops, perfume, chocolate with their effigy, and a film ( Spice World, the film , realized by Bob Spiers).

Moreover, Spice Girls are perhaps not the first Girls band (in the years 1980, there was already Bananarama, even if one did not speak yet about " girls band"), but it is they which put in vogue this kind of formation: since Spice Girls appeared the All Saints, Destiny's Child, Atomic Kitten and many other groups of the same type.

An assembled success of all parts?

Spice Girls were often shown in the media to be a group without real talent, whose extraordinary business success would be explained only by one promotion ground extremely well. One in particular reproached them for not being musicians of formation (they wrote themselves the words of their songs, but did not compose the music of it) and for the majority to be recruited on casting (according to some, more for their physics that for their artistic talents), before one makes them follow courses of song and dance. For these reasons, Spice Girls were often qualified by their detractors of " group préfabriqué".

Since, the world industry of the disc was much further in the " préfabrication" , while benefitting from the vagueness of famous the " telerealities musicales" (type Popstars) to try to create the " news Spice Girls". However, never no group resulting from this type of emissions will have met a success comparable with that the their elder ones, which leaves think that certain ingredients are indeed not " manufacturables" , or at least that the public has been attracted less by this type of formation for a few years.

Ideas preached by the group

" Girl Power! "

Spice Girls wanted to be Féministes: they had as a slogan " Girl Power" (" capacity of the filles"), and presented the Girl Power like a feminist novel mode of thought, according to which a woman can be independent and released all while getting dressed in a sensual way, or even without getting dressed with the whole: at the time of the round Spice World Turn , Spice Girls will go until interpreting the song Naked naked, simply hiding their intimate parts with the eyes of the public behind a turned over chair. According to the members of the group, a woman can be teaser while being released: are a question above all of being enjoyed in oneself, and not of liking it the men.

Moreover, texts of several their songs, such as Wannabe or Who C You Think You Are? , sounds as launched calls to the women so that they are not let dominate by the men. Girl Power according to Spice Girls goes hand in hand with a certain taste for the provocation, that it is towards the male race (confers the clip of the song Say You' L Be There , representing a man attached on the ground, in a position of tender to the women around him) or towards the codes of the propriety (for example, the first meeting of Spice Girls with Prince Charles, at the time which Geri Halliwell touched the buttocks of the latter, in front of the television cameras).

Nevertheless, the detractors of Spice Girls advance that the texts of their songs (which they consider childish and without real political scope) and their appropriate dresses hardly plead in favor of the cause of the women, and do not see in the " Girl Power" that a pseudo-feminism.

" Would be yourself! "

Spice Girls also wanted to be the cantors of a certain design of freedom of expression and action, being able to summarize itself by the sentence " would be you-même". In their interviews, they protested high and strong to have each one their own personality, that their appropriate dresses were supposed to reflect: Mel C was sporting the real tomboy, often out of track suit and tennis shoes, from where its nickname of " Sporty Spice" ; Victoria was the middle-class woman getting dressed only in Gucci, which was worth the nickname of " to him; Posh Spice" ( Posh wanting to say " snob"); Emma, the youngest member of the group, was the child wife, " Spice" baby; ; Geri was the rascal, " Ginger Spice" ( ginger wanting to say " gingembre" , report/ratio with its russet-red hair and its personality provocante, " piquante"); and Mel B was extravagant the " Scary Spice" ( Scary wanting to say " effrayante"). Their young fans of the female sex could be thus identified rather easily in Spice Girl in particular rather than with the others, while the young fans of the male sex could easily find of them one which attracted them.

By this step, Spice Girls dissociated majority of the servant boys bands and girls bands of then, of which all the members were vêtus same manner in their videos clip or in concert.

Discography

Albums

Individual

B-Sides

Others

Videotex

VHS

DVD

Rounds

1997 - Live In Istanbul
1998 - Spice World Turn
1998 - U.S.A Turn
1998 - Live At Wembley Stadium
1999 - Christmas in Spice World
2007/2008 - The Return off the Spice Girls

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