FEATURE:
Too Good to Be Forgotten: Songs That Are Much More Than a Guilty Pleasure
Spice Girls - Wannabe
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ON 8th July…
Spice Girls’ best-known track, Wannabe, turns twenty-five. I think that it is one of the best singles of the 1990s, and it still sounds so infectious and addictive. The reason I am featuring the song is because some people feel that it is a guilty pleasure. I do not subscribe to the notion that there is such a thing, yet there are plenty who think that Wannabe is a bit naff or over-hyped. Even if the Spice Girls divides people, I think Wannabe is a song that everyone can enjoy. From its one-take video to the amazing chorus and sense of positivity that shines from every line, Wannabe is a terrific song! I want to bring in some more detail regarding the track soon. Before then, some useful Wikipedia information regarding an anthem of the 1990s:
“Wannabe" is the debut single by British girl group the Spice Girls. Written and composed by the group members in collaboration with Matt Rowe and Richard "Biff" Stannard during the group's first professional songwriting session, it was produced by Rowe and Stannard for the group's debut album, Spice, released in November 1996. The song was written, composed, and recorded very quickly; but the result was considered lacklustre by their label, and was sent to be mixed by Dave Way. The group was not pleased with the result, and the recording was mixed again, this time by Mark "Spike" Stent.
Responding to the wave of public interest in the group, Virgin released the song as the group's debut single in June 1996, well ahead of the planned release date of the Spice album. "Wannabe" topped the UK Singles Chart for seven weeks and has received a double Platinum certification by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The song was released in the United States in January 1997, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. It was the group's only number-one single in that country. By the end of 1996, "Wannabe" had topped the charts in 22 nations, and by March 1997 this number had climbed to 37. "Wannabe" became the best-selling single by a girl group in the world, with 1,385,211 and 2,910,000 copies sold in United Kingdom (by 2015) and United States (by 2014), respectively, and over 7 million copies worldwide by the end of 1997. In a 2014 study, it was chosen as the most easily recognisable pop song of the last 60 years. "Wannabe" was Spotify's most-streamed 1990s song of 2020 by a female artist”.
I will move on the from the 1990s and feature a song from another decade in the next edition – I have spent a bit of time in the 1980s and 1990s lately. I would encourage people to check out and research the story of Wannabe and the earliest days of the Spice Girls. In terms of debut singles, few have come in as spirited and catchy as Wannabe!
The catchiness of Wannabe is one reason why so many people are a bit cold towards the song. In 2016, the BBC published an article ahead of Wannabe’s twentieth anniversary and explained why it is the catchiest song ever:
“I was 4 years old when Wannabe reached number one, and my love of pop music largely stems from the three minutes that introduced us to Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger and Posh. Twenty years on, Wannabe and the Spice Girls still stand out from the crowd, despite the long line of copycat girl groups that followed.
“There was nothing else quite like Wannabe on the radio back in summer 1996. Rock and dance music had been dominating the airwaves and charts for quite some time by that point,” Robert Copsey, editor at the UK’s Official Charts Company tells BBC Culture. “The Spice Girls struck at just the right moment with Wannabe; a gutsy, enthusiastic and unashamed pop song we’d all been craving without even realising it.”
There’s a simple reason for Wannabe’s place in popular culture: it’s catchy as hell. According to a 2014 study by the University of Amsterdam and Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry, Wannabe is actually the catchiest song of all time.
It’s instantly recognisable, with participants in the university’s project identifying it in just 2.29 seconds, partly due to Mel B’s unforgettable laugh. That’s quicker than hits by Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Elvis Presley, as well as Lady Gaga’s debut, Just Dance. So, what is it about the song that makes it so catchy?
Dr John Ashley Burgoyne and Dr Jan van Balen, who have conducted extensive research into the formula that makes a song memorable, believe Wannabe’s simplicity is integral to its success. “I would describe the song as truly relentlessly catchy,” says Burgoyne. “It’s not that it has this one hook per se. It’s quite ingeniously composed.”
“We found, much to our surprise, that writing a very surprising and unusual hook is not the recipe for long term memorability,” he continues. “Actually, the more conventional your melody in terms of the interval patterns that you use; in terms of the rhythms that you use, the easier the song is to remember over the long term. What makes Wannabe work so well is that it isn’t a difficult song to sing, it has a conventional melody that repeats itself a lot, and it’s just relentless”.
I think there will be a lot of celebration when Wannabe turns twenty-five. As this Metro article from last year details, we will see a fascinating new documentary to mark that anniversary:
“The Spice Girls will be the subject of a new documentary celebrating 25 years since the release of their iconic hit Wannabe. The world-conquering classic turns 25 (!) in 2021, and its been announced that Channel 4 will air Girl Powered: The Spice Girls next year to celebrate the occaision. Wannabe was the debut single by the Spice Girls, and ended up topping the charts in both the US and the UK, and kicking off a worldwide obsession with Posh, Baby, Ginger, Sporty and Scary that endures to this day. The new film will take viewers behind the scenes of the genesis of Britain’s greatest girlband and how they managed to carve out a niche for themselves in a musical scene that was then dominated by ‘Brit Pop’ acts like Oasis and Blur.
Channel 4 revealed in a statement that Girl Powered would be a mix of archival footage and ‘revealing interviews.’ All five girls wrote Wannabe alongside long-time collaborators Richard ‘Biff’ Stannard and Matt Rowe.
Wannabe would be the first in a record-breaking run of number one singles for the five girls. They were the first act since The Beatles to score the Christmas number one two years in a row, with Too Much and Goodbye, eventually topping the charts nine times. They are still, officially, the best-selling girl group of all time. But Girl Power couldn’t last forever. Geri Halliwell (now Horner) left the group in 1998 to kickstart a solo career of her own, and the now-foursome would release their third and final album, Forever, in 2000”.
I will wrap things up now. I can understand that not everyone likes the Spice Girls’ music, though I would defend Wannabe and can’t understand why some consider it to be a guilty pleasure. Whether you think their Girl Power brand and mission statement was a little forced and gimmicky or opened doors for women through society, one has to acknowledge that songs like Wannabe captured a mood and is still being talked about because it is so strong. If you are one of those people that has slated Wannabe and set it aside, I would compel you to…
HAVE another listen.