FEATURE:
Never Give Up on the Good Times
Spice Girls’ Spiceworld at Twenty-Five
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A twenty-fifth anniversary edition…
of Spice Girls’ Spiceworld is to be released. You can pre-order it here. Although some critics reacted negatively to the group’s second studio album, I think it is incredible. Spice Up Your Life, Stop and Too Much is an awesome trio of opening tracks. I am going to finish with a couple of reviews for one of the biggest albums of the 1990s. It is impossible to overstate the impact Spiceworld made. Released on 3rd November, 1997, this was nearing the end of a year that was among the most interesting and exciting ever. Britpop had gone and new styles were coming in. Even if Spice Girls’ Pop sound was perhaps not quite in step with what was around them of what people considered cool or current, Spiceworld has stood the test of time. Continuing the ‘Spicemania’ phenomenon that began with their awesome debut, Spice, of 1996, Spiceworld is well worth spinning if you have not heard it for a while. It is amazing to think how much Melanie Brown (‘Scary Spice’), Melanie Chisholm (‘Sporty Spice’), Emma Bunton (‘Baby Spice’), Geri Halliwell (‘Ginger Spice’) and Victoria Beckham (Adams as she was at the time) (‘Posh Spice’) packed into a couple of years! Despite the fact their Girl Power mantra did not last long and does sound a bit contrived now, there is no denying the mania and love that was around them in 1997. Spiceworld debuted at number one on in the U.K., with first-week sales of 190,000 copies and shipped an amazing 1.4 million copies in two weeks. I think a certain amount of pressure, fame and endless performances took its toll. This was the last studio album with Geri Halliwell (who left during the tour). It is a shame that there was so much pressure on them and they sort of got swept up in it all. Even so, the group are still together now…although Victoria Beckham didn’t perform with them during their last tour. Mel B did hint that 2023 could be the year that the reunion tour happens.
It has yet to be seen whether there will be an anniversary tour of Spiceworld and whether the original five-piece will reunite. I guess Spice Girls will always be seen as a bit of a fad by some, but I think their albums pack a punch and have brilliant songs on them. Even deeper cuts on Spiceworld are interesting. I will actually finish with one review, as there are a couple of retrospective features that take us inside an album that is twenty-five on 3rd November. Albumism celebrated twenty years of Spiceworld in 2017:
“Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Horner (née Halliwell) had already conquered their native homeland England—and most of the globe — with Spice in 1996. Once their first album stepped onto American shores, simply put, it was just another territory to be taken by the quintet. And so it was. Looking back now, in the era of Blur, Björk and Bad Boy, the Spice Girls were a funky, approachable and fresh alternative. They were also well studied. Their research had encompassed the musical urbanity of their American predecessors En Vogue and TLC, as well as the DIY model of their British foremothers Bananarama. Pairing that education with their own musical and visual disposition, the Spice Girls were peerless upon arrival.
But, it wasn’t enough for the Spice Girls to be musically formidable, they scaled the business world too. Of course, the pundits, mostly men, fumed. They attempted, through harsh critique written or otherwise, to obstruct the Spice Girls. It was to no avail. Multiple endorsement deals—from Pepsi-Cola to Chupa-Chups—kept their brand omnipresent. Additionally, they began work on their own feature film, a satirical, A Hard Days Night inspired project. Filming started in the summer of 1997 with a Christmas reveal posited for the same year. As the media dubbed “Spice Mania” was reaching peak hysteria in mid-1997, the group went to work writing and recording their sophomore set, Spiceworld. Aligned again with their principal co-writers and producers from Spice—Richard Stannard, Matt Rowe, Paul Wilson and Andy Watkins—the Spice Girls shut out the madness with attention to detail and focus on content.
Spice, at its heart, was a British rewrite of R&B Americana aesthetics in a pop context. Spiceworld sought to maintain that artistic standard, but open their sound. This was partially achieved by switching out the contemporary rhythm and blues of Spice for archetypal black music hallmarks for use on their second LP: jazz, doo-wop, Motown and disco. These facets of R&B had become so integrated into the general frame of pop music in years past that, to many listeners, they’d become staple instruments of the pop genre toolbox itself.
The categories of jazz (“The Lady is a Vamp”), doo-wop (“Too Much”), Motown (“Stop”) and disco (“Never Give Up on the Good Times”) were evocatively constructed pastiches on these differing forms of R&B now seen largely as “pop.” This, of course, is what the pop genre excels at when at its best: proper pastiche. There were exceptions to this vintage methodology though. Cuts like “Saturday Night Divas,” “Denying” and “Outer Space Girls”—B-side to the album’s second single “Too Much”—graciously nodded to the 1980s rhythm and blues variants of synth-funk, New Jack Swing and freestyle.
However, Spiceworld was about opening the Spice Girls' sound to other musical cravings. From the lush Spanish folk and orchestral aural ballet of “Viva Forever” to the reggae boogie-bump of “Walk of Life” (the second B-side to “Too Much”), these songs reinforced that the Girls weren’t just R&B junkies. But it was “Spice Up Your Life” that was the LP’s creative behemoth. An infectious slice of Latin groove, it was one of their most demonstrative evolutionary jumps, sonically speaking.
Central to the function of these (musical) components were the Girls themselves, lyrical and vocal entities cognizant of their respective strengths. Two, three, four and five-part harmonic blends and shared leads boasted five distinctive voices. A contralto (Horner), two sopranos (Beckham, Bunton) and two mezzo-sopranos (Brown, Chisholm) made the rocky sugar rush of “Move Over” a fine example of their chemistry. Thematically, they ante upped with “Do It,” the album's text centerpiece, confronting female oppression in the song’s first verse, “I will not be told / keep your mouth shut, keep your legs shut / get back in your place! / Blameless, shameless, damsel in disgrace! / Who cares what they say / because the rules are for breaking! / Who made them anyway? / You gotta show what you feel, don't hide!”
It was clear, the Spice Girls weren't resting on their laurels for their second outing.
Spiceworld hit shelves in the United Kingdom on November 3, 1997, it followed suit stateside the next day. The record was received sensationally and as of this writing has moved over 20 million units worldwide. Four singles were lifted from the LP from October 1997 to July 1998: “Spice Up Your Life” (UK# 1, US #18), “Too Much” (UK #1, US #9), “Stop” (UK #2, US #16), and “Viva Forever” (UK#1).
Critically, tastemakers of the day lazily tried to lump the Spice Girls into an incidental wave of homogenous pre-fab pop that came after their rise. In the years since, the music on Spiceworld has beaten back the criticism, proving that the Spice Girls were not merely “a product.”
One of the most exciting albums of 1997, their second LP facilitated even stronger turns in their future recording career, collectively and individually. Twenty years removed from its release, Spiceworld is as bold, colorful and musical as pop gets and it doesn’t get any better than this”.
The second feature I want to bring in is from The Young Folks. They also marked twenty years of the album in 2017. There is no denying the fact Spiceworld and the Spice Girls influenced a generation of girl groups and solo artists. Even though the album is quite sugary and has a lack of edge that was present in the music of U.S. girl groups of the time, there is intelligence, heart, powerful messages, and a sense of fun that runs through Spiceworld:
“When the Spice Girls brought their debut album Spice into the world, they became an international sensation. The British girl band comprised of Melanie Brown (Scary Spice), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice), Emma Buntin (Baby Spice), Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) and Victoria Adams Beckham (Posh Spice) were met with international tours, major sponsorship offers, and even a movie deal within a year of the release. It’s always best to strike while the iron is hot, and the Spice Girls weren’t about to let their careers cool down. Thus, Spiceworld was born.
This sophomore album was recorded while filming their movie Spice World, meaning that the entirety was written and recorded in stolen moments between takes. While the Spice Girls hung onto the creative control and writing process they had fought for while creating Spice, their contributions were piecemeal at times due to the chaotic nature of filming. Spiceworld was released to mainly positive reviews, often for how catchy and melodic every song was. While it didn’t reach the same height of success that Spice did, Spiceworld has sold over thirteen million copies worldwide and landed on the Billboard Top 100 chart, making them the first British band to have two separate albums in the top ten at the same time since the Rolling Stones over twenty years prior.
Spiceworld takes what the Girls built with Spice and expands their sound, further developing their amalgamation of pop, R&B, and disco with dips into Latin influences (“Spice Up Your Life,” “Viva Forever”), Motown sound (“Stop,” “Too Much”), and interestingly enough, jazz (“The Lady is a Vamp”). While some critics weren’t in love with the experimentation, others were impressed that the Spice Girls were expanding their horizons musically without sacrificing any of their instantly memorable melodies. For instance, album opener “Spice Up Your Life” was slammed in reviews for its lyrical hodgepodge, but its effervescence and infectious energy made it a worldwide success regardless of what critics had to say.
Thematically, Spiceworld helped the Spice Girls continued to build their girl power brand. Self respect continued to be a major topic on the album. The Motown-influenced “Stop” is all about slowing down a relationship to prove that it’s more about the chase. “You need less speed/Get off my case/Gotta slow it down baby just get out of my face,” they sing during the bridge, making it known that their significant other complies or hits the bricks. The keyboard-heavy “Denying” let an unnamed man know that they saw through him. “You think you’re so cool/Hey big man you’re old school/You think you’re smart/But who the hell you think you’re talking to,” Chisholm and Halliwell sing, asserting their lack of respect.
While Spice talked a lot about girl power, Spiceworld took it to a new level with direct advice for their fans within the lyrics. The disco-riddled “Never Give Up on the Good Times” lends some fairly self-explanatory advice, the power pop Pepsi endorsement track “Move Over” calls fans to come together, and the Madonna-esque “Do It” instructs fans to trust themselves above anyone else.
The album ends on “The Lady is a Vamp,” a jazz-inspired tune that makes it sound like the Spice Girls are performing at a speakeasy. The pop culture reference-filled song is all about women who dared to break the rules, both real life and fictional–Bond girls, Charlie’s Angels, Jackie Onassis Kennedy, Sandy from Grease, to name a few–and how that doesn’t always get the best of attention at the time. By adding their Spice names in at the end, the girls are inserting themselves into this line of boundary-breaking women, giving a name to their legacy. This is especially significant considering Halliwell left the group before all of the album’s singles were even released.
While it may not have seen the same level of commercial success as Spice, Spiceworld is just as important to fans. The album garnered positive feedback for its boundless energy and infectious spirit, as well as the Girls’ dedication to inspiring their fans. David Browne’s original Entertainment Weekly review sums up Spiceworld perfectly: “Trading verses in this and other songs, [the Spice Girls] transform the numbers into audio pajama parties full of sisterly advice, support, and warnings. Part heart, part mind, all cotton candy, Spiceworld might just be the answer to one of life’s most vexing quandaries.” Spiceworld may not have been the be-all end-all of pop music, but it was insanely energetic, fun as hell, and furthered the idea that the Spice Girls had established with their first album: young girls have voices and they should use them, regardless of what anyone tells them to do”.
I am going to end with a positive review of Spiceworld. AllMusic kept it short, but they did have positives to offer - even if they do call the music manufactured and a guilty pleasure. I don’t actually think there is anything guilt-inducing listening to Spice Girls! There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure. You are either a fan of the music or not. I am not a huge Spice Girls fan, though I do like their second studio album and feel its twenty-fifth anniversary should be marked:
“The Spice Girls, as well as their managers and songwriters, are nothing if not clever, and Spiceworld, the group's second album, illustrates exactly how sharp they are. Conventional wisdom dictates that Spiceworld should be a weak facsimile of Spice, which itself featured a handful of great singles surrounded by filler. Conventional wisdom, in this case, is wrong -- Spiceworld is a better record than its predecessor, boasting a more consistent (and catchier) set of songs and an intoxicating sense of fun. Instead of merely rewriting Spice, Spiceworld consolidates and expands the group's style, adding Latin flourishes ("Spice Up Your Life"), kitschy blues ("The Lady Is a Vamp"), and stomping, neo-Motown blue-eyed soul in the vein of Culture Club ("Stop"). The girls -- Mel C. in particular -- are actually turning into good vocalists, and each song plays to their strengths, giving each Spice a chance to shine. Best of all, each song has a strong melody and a strong, solid beat, whether it's a ballad or a dance number. It's a pure, unadulterated guilty pleasure and some of the best manufactured mainstream dance-pop of the late '90s”.
In a year where Tony Blair’s Labour government came to power and there was a huge wave of optimism in the country, Spiceworld fitted nicely into that. It is small wonder it resonated with so many people. Music around them was changing quite dramatically, but that does not make the album dated or uncool. Instead, it was a group continuing where they left off on Spice and making something bigger, more varied, and more confident. It was inevitable that Spice Girls’ reign would end and they would mature their sound (2000’s Forever is a more mature, reflective and, to be fair, weaker album than their first two). I still think that their 1997 album still sounds great and exciting…
TWENTY-FIVE years later.