[cold open]
Elyse: Yeah, it was a lot of nips and I thought that was great.
Spice Invaders Theme Song: [over trumpet music] It’s got theme song vibes. Like danceable, funky. [Laughter]. So 90s. Girl power. Spice Invaders.
Sinead: Are we ready?
Ashley: Yeah.
Elyse: Yeah!
Ashley: Does anyone want to tell everyone what the podcast is about?
Sinead: Does anyone want to talk about the last episode? The end of last episode, what we covered?
Megan: I remember we were talking about sort of like what came before like their recording, and Sinead talked a bit about like what it was like in the UK after Wannabe came out, and they came over to the States, and they started like making connections with people. We also talked a little bit about like Girl Power versus feminism. I think that's where we left the episode.
Sinead: Yep, that is where we left it. They're going all around and starting to get a lot of publicity, and they still haven't actually released a single yet, so enter Wannabe. The girls were pretty adamant that Wannabe should be their first single. They really loved it as a song. However, Virgin and their manager Simon Fuller really wanted Say You’ll Be There, and they didn't really want to even entertain Wannabe.
However, Geri and Mel B, of course, the two, like, leaders of the Spice Girls, were very much on Team Wannabe. They felt like it was a Girl Power manifesto, especially the line “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.” And it served as an introduction to their five personalities.
Although it’s kinda funny because there actually wasn't a track for Victoria on the single because she had missed when they had written it. It's either because she was sick or she was at a wedding. Like we've seen some different accounts. There's no definitive answer to why she wasn't at the recording. But she ended up without a verse and she mostly sings backup on the track. So basically, all of them really wanted Wannabe, especially Mel B and Geri. And Virgin says that Say You'll Be There is way more radio friendly and a much cooler track. A big part of the problem with Wannabe is the original version they had recorded wasn't very radio friendly. The vocals are really low, and it sounds weird. And actually, if you recall the scene in the cafe in Spice World, they were playing that original Wannabe track over it, so that's like the music. It was sent to a different American producer by Virgin who produced it with, like an r&b slant that Geri called, quote, “bloody awful.”
Cheryl: So Simon Fuller brings in a producer and mixer by the name of Spike Stent . He's working with U2 at the time. He's worked with Depeche Mode and Massive Attack. And he kinda thought Wannabe was weird. But he thought it was weird because it didn't sound like anything else around. So he gets it and within about six hours, he's able to give it a radio ready sound, bringing vocals to the forefront. But the six hours solved the impasse with Virgin. And it also lands him the job of remixing the rest of this album, and the second one.
Elyse: I have an interesting fact too about why Virgin didn't want Wannabe to be the original track. They did think it was, like, a little bit weird, and they had trouble like not tinkering with it - they were obsessed with remixing it. But a big part of it too was that Simon felt strategically that first songs tend to disappear, they tend to get. like. lost a little bit. So it was all sort of a strategic decision that they're like it's a solid song, it has potential. And if you launch it first, people are only going to remember your second song. So it wasn't all hate. Some of it was just we want to save it until you guys have some name recognition. And the girls obviously didn't want to do that.
Sinead: Which is pretty funny in hindsight because-
Steph: Look where we are now.
Sinead: 25 years later, it's probably their most recognizable song.
Steph: And still a hot jam.
Elyse: Definitely.
Cheryl: So this sort of solves the problem of the radio edit of the single, but you know, the 90s were full of video programs like MTV, and Canada's Much Music and also the British version, which was The Box. The Box is going right up against MTV, and the CEO actually met the Spice Girls at their incident at the racetrack where they, you know, climbed up on top of a horse. And he says to them, like, “Hey, I want exclusive rights to whatever you release first,” because he wants to pull one over on MTV, which actually gets him an advanced screening of that.
|However, filming the actual video, Fuller brings in Jhoanne Camitz who actually doesn't have a lot of experience in the music video space, but he's done commercials for Volkswagen and Nike. And he had this vision of a one-take shot where they arrive at an exotic building in the middle of a park in Spain, and it's slightly surreal and it's filled with these bohemian artists. And they would run all over just like they did in their glorious pre-label days. The catch is, about five days before they're set to shoot in Spain, they learn they don't have permission to shoot in that building. So they relocated to the St. Pancras Hotel in London.
Sinead: Yeah, so, the Virgin team hates the video. They hated it. It was dark, it was gloomy, there were old people in the video.
All: [Laughter]
Sinead: There was like some argument that the public might find that threatening? Which I don't really understand.
Elyse: Wait, the idea of having old people?
Sinead: Yes.
Steph: Old people are threatening? Like they're gonna, “I’ll hit you with my cane.”
Elyse: Or where the Spice Girls like threatening the old people?
Sinead: I think it was more they were acting, quote unquote “aggressively” in the Wannabe video. Like very into themselves and like dancing around. And it was like too in their face, and they were worried that it would just turn the public off essentially. Like the vibe of the video and turn the public off.
Steph: That's fair. Baby does steal a homeless person's hat.
Sinead: That also happened. Um, it was also so cold in the video that you can see Mel B's nipples. And this actually ended up getting the video banned in several countries.
Megan: Nipples?
Sinead: Her nipples
Ashley: There was more nipples, I think, right? Like it wasn't even just her nipples, but-
Elyse: Yeah, it was a lot of nips, and I thought that was great.
Megan: Everyone has nipples though.
Sinead: Yeah, well apparently that's very controversial for 1996.
Steph: Nipples are still controversial, so it hasn't really progressed that far.
Megan: I personally embrace nipples.
Elyse: Yes.
Sinead: Um, so anyway, there were other like small things. In the video, Geri bumps into a chair, which doesn't help because you know, we all know she's not the dancer of the group.
Elyse: She bumped into everything because she insisted on wearing these gigantic shoes and she couldn't walk in them, so when you watch the video, she's just like, tottering around. She's walking like a crab and she like can't stay upright. It's hilarious.
Megan: That's like every girl at like their first middle school dance or whenever they first wear heels, you know? Trying to walk around the dance floor.
Steph: Just like if you go to your first bar. Or second bar, whatever.
Sinead: Um, or as a 32 year old who just doesn't really wear high heels because I'm tall enough.
All: [Laughter]
Megan: Okay, I have a question for you guys. As someone who - is this 1997 that the music video came out?
Sinead & Cheryl: ‘96.
Megan: ‘96. I don't think we even owned a TV then - but I definitely didn't have Much Music. Was it that different than other music videos at the time? Like do you guys remember it being like, “Oh, this is, I've never seen this before.”
Steph: I don't remember even watching the video, like I don't think I was allowed to watch it? Or-
Ashley: Because of the nipples.
Steph: Yeah, maybe because of the nipples.
All: [Laughter]
Elyse: Babies can't know about nipples.
Steph: I don't think my parents would have been into watching it. So I don't remember seeing the video til much later, to be honest.
Cheryl: They also don't get the same radio play- like the same airtime in Canada until much later, until they've already had several other like, equally impressive and totally like normal videos recorded, which I think is a part of it.
Elyse: Yeah, I think it was really unpolished for American audiences too. Like apparently, they actually wanted the Spice Girls to reshoot a different version of the video for American and Canadian audiences because they thought the British one was too sort of like raw and it was messy like it was super messy.
Cheryl: It’s messy.
Elyse: And they thought that you know, like, audiences abroad wouldn't respond well to it and the girls really had to put their foot down and they said like, “No, this is us, this is what we wanted to do” and they refused to reshoot it, but they got a lot of pushback from their management team saying that it just it wouldn't fly.
Sinead: Yeah, exactly. Um, Geri is quoted as saying “It's us, warts and all. We're not going to have some sort of slick Elton John-”
Elyse: What an example!
Sinead: [Laughter] “-music video production.” And she said “We had a laugh doing it. That's us, and if you don't get that you don't get us.” I don't know if in 1996 Elton John was some sort of really high bar for music video production, but-
Elyse: All I can picture is the video that’s like - [singing] “I'm still standing” and it's like him on a beach and it's also super low production video- production quality. So I love that that was the example because he had the worst videos ever!
Steph: Yeah, that's the only Elton John video I can think of too.
Elyse: Yeah!
Steph: And only because they put it sort of side by side in Rocket Man.
Elyse: In Rocket Man, me too!
Elyse and Steph: [Laughter]
Steph: Oh god, we’re cool.
Cheryl: So almost three months before the track is actually released as a single, the video gets an exclusive run on The Box, which is MTV’s big rival in Britain. It goes to number one for requests within about two hours, and it quickly averages about 70 plays a week.
Steph: That's the nipples though.
Cheryl: Yeah, that is nipples.
Steph: [Laughter]
Cheryl: Yeah. ‘Cause especially, like, only normally super successful artists get to go to number one that quickly.
Elyse: It was the nipple availability.
Cheryl: [Laughter] The track was released to the world on July 8, 1996, going to number three immediately on the British chart, and going to number one the next week, staying there for about seven weeks and selling 1.25 million copies in the UK. They're also the first British group to top the charts with their first single, and it's eventually dethroned by Say You’ll Be There 13 weeks later.
Megan: Cool stat because like, British music is huge, like through the decades. I think that's quite impressive.
Steph: Yeah, I mean, you think about The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John.
Megan: Elton John.
Sinead: Of course, we can’t forget Elton John.
Megan: He’s the bar.
Sinead: Yeah, but basically, there had been no musical sensation on the level of The Beatles until the Spice Girls. And we'll get into that later. So on July 21, the single hits number one, so they appear via satellite from Japan where they were on a promotional tour at the time, they appear on Top of the Pops. And this is sort of a preview of how Simon Fuller operates. While they were actually on the promotional tour, coming in from an international locale makes the band appear like they already have a lot of international success. So he's sort of positioning them to be like “Oh, they're already like globe-trotting like all around the world like doing their music.” So the director of press at Virgin in ‘96 said, quote: “The sound of the song, the playground feel of it, it worked for them across the world without exception.” Sandall (Virgin VP) also noted that Girl Power really spoke directly to an empowered group of young-ish girls, and that the appeal was also social and political.
Cheryl: So Ashley Newton, head of artists and repertoire at Virgin, who was very much on the Say You’ll Be There train, is forced to kind of eat his words, and admit that he's wrong. He explains “We in the record company were trying to overthink in certain situations. The girls were much more impulsive and much more knowledgeable about what a young kid wants from rock and pop stars. They were closer to it than us. They just understood it.”
Ashley: Triumph.
Cheryl: Victory.
Steph: Girl Power
Sinead: Selling lots of records.
Megan: Nipples.
All: [Laughter]
Sinead: On the heels of Wannabe doing really well, the Virgin execs wanted to make sure their next hit was lined up, naturally. So in September of ‘96, the girls headed to the Mojave Desert to film the video for Say You’ll Be There. The song had been written with Elliott Kennedy, who is the producer you might recall from earlier who refused to stop working with them when Heart Management was being bitter. Say You'll Be There had always been the favored single by the record company and by Fuller, so they were willing to throw a lot of resources at it.
The music video for Say You’ll Be There was directed by Vaughan Arnell, who is an English music video dude who was already fairly well established. At the time Arnell was more known for his commercial work, but shortly before Say You’ll Be There he’d done a couple of music videos for George Michael, so he obviously was pretty successful. His most famous video prior to Say You’ll Be There was actually Dead or Alive’s 1984 video for You Spin Me Right Round. Which I know that we all know that song- I know Steph’s face, I knew you would like that fact.
Sinead: So yeah, You Spin Me Right Round video and Say You'll Be There are tangentially related because they have the same director. The shoot required the girls to be superheroes and they literally had to be superheroes. The video was filmed in 44 degrees Celsius heat, and they were wearing those like very tight leather outfits. The director called Victoria unbelievable, citing her professionalism while needing to stand on the back of a car in a leather cat suit.
Cheryl: Also I just wanted to point out, a ridiculous tangent because it's early and we're gonna start planting these seeds. Apparently when this video was on in like the Manchester United locker room, one of David Beckham's like teammates asked him like “Which one do you fancy?” And he says, “The one in the leather catsuit.”
Elyse: Aw. They love each other.
Cheryl: I know.
Elyse: They’re mawwied.
Sinead: He also really likes nannies.
All: [Laughter]
Sinead: That came later.
Elyse: Ok well, those two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Wait, they're still married though, right?
All: Yeah.
Sinead: All I hope is that Posh is getting some dick on the side.
Elyse: I think we all hope that they're all getting a lot of dick from every direction. To the degree that they want it. [Laughter]
Ashley: Good caveat.
All: [Laughter]
Sinead: So I can share a link to the video if we want to play it because it is quite like a stylized, filmy kind of video. I don't know if you guys remember.
Elyse: So apparently this video is based on a science fiction movie called “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”
Steph: Yeah.
Elyse: That’s where they got the aesthetic. I have no further information.
Sinead: It is based on that.
Ashley: Here we go. I'm pressing play.
Elyse: Oh, wow. That is a satellite.
Steph: Little spaceship. I actually- so I thought that was weird. And it's like, it's just an American beer that doesn't exist anymore.
Elyse: Really?
Steph: The spaceship? Yeah.
Megan: Guys I have never seen this before.
Elyse: Wow, that is a leather cowboy with unbuttoned pants.
Ashley: Let's talk about their names a little bit.
Steph: Yeah. Emma was “Kung Fu Candy.” Mel C was “Katrina High Kick.” Geri was “Trixie Firecracker.”
Megan: [Laughter] What does that even mean?
Elyse: It means she's a tricksy little firecracker.
Steph: Posh is... “Midnight Miss Suki?” And Mel B was “Blazin’ Bad Zula.”
Elyse: Oooooh.
Ashley: Okay.
Elyse: Those are all very, I don't know, precarious names, that I don't know that I feel equipped to dive into.
Megan: I'm getting the vibe that whoever came up with those names in the video lost out the job to name Bond villains and female characters.
Elyse: How do we feel about Kung Fu Candy?
Steph: Well, Baby's mom was a karate teacher, and Baby got to be- I should say Emma, Emma was like a green or blue belt, karate person.
Sinead: The girls were all trained in basic kung fu moves for the choreography and some of that was taught to them by Emma.
Ashley: Whoa.
Elyse: Are we going to talk about Scary’s outfit as well? The sort of like, tribal vibe.
Ashley: Yeah with the ring necklaces.
Sinead: It’s actually really interesting because Mel B talks about early in her career, especially with filming the videos, she got a lot of pressure to straighten her hair and like get rid of her natural texture, which she was like “fuck off” basically. “I'm not doing that.”
Elyse: Good for her, yeah.
Sinead: But it is interesting that I feel like instead because she kept her natural hair there was definitely like a push to like dress her more in that like sort of tribal aesthetic than the other girls where you never see them wearing anything like that.
Elyse: Yeah
Sinead: But yeah good for her for sure because she did say there was a lot of pressure to alter her natural hair and she did not want to.
Elyse: Yeah, I've always been so curious to know like how much of her look she had any influence over versus how much it was just like dictated to her because obviously it so profoundly changes how we look at that like aesthetic. Because if it was like her white producers being like “This is the Scary vibe and if you want to have your natural hair, then we're going to go all the way with it.” That is such a different conversation than her just being like “I really love this animal print. I think this look is amazing and like this is what I want to wear.” And I don't know, does anybody know like what the story is behind that?
Sinead: I think it is mostly what she wanted to wear because there was a lot of emphasis especially on the band in ‘96 about them really embracing their own personal style and that being part of it. That said, like they obviously made alter egos so I don't know how much she was picking those things to fit within it. But I think at this time they still didn't have a lot of styling compared to like a celebrity now. Like in the Wannabe video which is only filmed months before this video they were literally wearing like the thrift store clothes that they owned that were in their personal closets, so I don't think there was that much interference about them stylistically because they were so insistent on being individual
Cheryl: So one month after they complete the shoot in October of 1996, Say You’ll Be There is released as a single in the UK. It's strategically released when the popularity of Wannabe begins to fade and it's the group's first single to debut at number one. It stayed in the top position for 2 weeks and spent 12 more weeks in the top 40. Critical reception at the time was pretty mixed. Some critics said it was a great pop song but many said it didn't have much substance. One review is quoted as calling it “A harmless mid-tempo foot tapper.” But in retrospective reviews of their music, Say You’ll Be There is often cited as one of their stronger songs and has since appeared on a few notable “best songs of the 90s” list. VH1 in particular ranked the video as number eight in their all time greatest music videos in history.
Steph: I mean, Emma in like a lot of podcast interviews has consistently said that Say You’ll Be There one of her favorite like all time favorite songs. And even though she passed out while filming because it was so hot-
Elyse: She passed out?!
Steph: Yeah.
Elyse: Oh no!
Steph: It was still like one of her favorite video shoots too.
Cheryl: So in November of 1996, the girls released their first studio album Spice in the UK. It debuted at number one on the UK album chart, with first day sales of over 114,000 copies. Before the album was even released, the preorders actually drove the album to silver status, with over 60,000 advanced copies ordered. The album spent 15 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the chart, and within three months, it had gone platinum six times. In total since 1996, Spice has sold more than 23 million copies worldwide. It is the biggest selling album by a girl group in music history. And randomly to coincide with the girls’ international takeover, the album was actually released in September 1996 in Japan a full two months before the UK release. It actually sold several million copies in Japan and South Asia before the release of the second album.
Sinead: Critically, the album received mostly positive reviews, with critic Dev Sherlock saying the album was, quote: “A well balanced manifesto for young women everywhere that is neither twee nor riot girl angry.” Thank God it wasn't angry. Sorry, that was me editorializing, the very end of that quote.
All: [Laughter]
Sinead: I did not give that a beat. “Neither twee nor right girl angry,” period, is where that quote ends.
Elyse: And those are to be clear the only two options for young women.
Sinead: Of course.
Elyse: You can be infantilized useless tweens, or you can be riotous angry feminists, and both suck.
Sinead: The Spice album was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, which is a big deal artistic prize in the UK. The judging panel was quoted as saying: “At the heart of the Spice Girls’ success lies a brilliant collection of well crafted pop songs. Surely the hardest form to get right.” Oh yeah, the Spice album’s critical reception at the time was pretty decent. I think it's fair to say 25 years later that it has endured unlike most albums released in the 90s. I think that would be fair to say. At the time, culturally, the release and the reception of Spice, the album, by the public was insane. So this is where the term Spicemania popped up, which was a nod to the Beatles and to the intensity that Spice Girls fans had towards the band. Massive crowds of screaming girls gathered, popping up wherever the Spice Girls went, and demand for their merchandise went sky high. Days after the album released, the girls were in Oxford Street in London, which is a big shopping district, to turn on the Christmas lights, and they were mobbed with fans, and I actually have a little video.
[Audio plays of an announcer introducing the Spice Girls, and a screaming crowd quickly drowning out the announcer.]
Sinead: This is one of the first times they were mobbed.
Elyse: This must have been so just like disorienting and overwhelming like I know they liked being in the spotlight, but I can't imagine being around that many people screaming for you. That's so wild.
Megan: And that quickly. Like it's really fast!
Elyse: Yeah, I think there was like a thing too that Geri and Mel B kept causing a bunch of issues for their security detail, who wanted everything to obviously be very, like, regimented and wanted to show exactly where the girls were going at all times. And like they didn't plan to do this. But every time they saw, you know, really excited kids there to see them, they would get over excited and run forward and just start signing things and hugging kids and like it really freaked out their security guards because they couldn't protect them. And they were stuck in a couple of pretty dangerous sounding situations. I think there was one where someone got, like, crushed against a wall because of all the excitement in a \ mob. But yeah, they just couldn't contain how thrilled they were to see their fans.
25:05
Sinead: Yeah, I really think for me, that's one thing I enjoy every time I dig into the research is how nice they were and by all reports continue to be toward their fans with like a genuine warmth and a genuine interest, especially children, like they all, even when they were 20, 21, they just loved kids. And I think that's cute, and they didn't take it for granted at all, which I think is rare, especially later on, it becomes rare that they continue not to take it for granted.
Megan: And they didn't devalue fans that were children. It's not as if a kid being your fan is any less important than an adult. My sister had this little group of friends there was five of them and they were super close. They even had a name for themselves. My sister's name was Emma she had blonde hair, so she was all baby and they each had a Spice Girl. And whenever they got together, they dress up as their Spice Girl and they would do like little lip sync routines.
Steph: I definitely remember like playing with friends and we would play Spice Girls, and we’d each be a different Spice Girl and just dance around.
Sinead: Is that not an entire scene of PEN15?
Elyse: Yeah it is.
Sinead: In the same month that the Spice album was released, the girls were already on to filming their next video, cuz obviously they had to keep going with their cycle of hits, this time they were filming “2 Become 1” and it's a pretty big departure from the prior two videos, which were really choreographed. It was a really low key green screen filming, which they filmed in London over a couple of days. The actual video shows the girls wandering around in New York, but they were never there. This hasn’t aged well.
Elyse: Oh boy, that is just a rough Photoshop, isn't it?
Sinead: It sure is. I mean, I'm sure in 1996 it was fine. I know when I was googling around, there were people, like fans, people our age who are grown up now, who genuinely believed they had filmed that video on the streets of New York.
Cheryl: Talking about the questionable look, Victoria was later quoted as saying: “I think 2 Become 1 is my favorite video. It was really different to the other videos, shot entirely in the studio with high technology and loads of effects. It was really weird having to sing passionately to the camera. I was feeling right mug in front of all those people singing ‘Wanna make love to you baby.’”
2 Become 1 is apparently based on the “special relationship” - which I'm putting in scare quotes because that's what they call it - between Geri and Matt Rowe. Matt Rowe was part of Stannard and Rowe from their early recording days. Matt Rowe says “we kind of flirted a bit”. Stannard, the writing partner, said “I knew what was going on, even though they denied it. I knew them both too well for it to be a secret from me”. Apparently they flirted their way through the first few verses, but Elyse’s face tells me...
Elyse: It's not in her bio. I just did a find, I just did a search on it. Thank you kindle. And no, the only time she mentioned him is um, yeah, we started working with a production team at a recording studio called the Stone Room in the city Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard, better known as Matt and Biff had worked with East 17. And had seen us performing our showcase in November. That is the only mention of him and her in her entire book.
Sinead: There might be a little bit of a story in the omission of that.
Elyse: Yeah, exactly.
Sinead: I don't know how reasonably we can read into that, but...
Megan: Maybe he's not that memorable.
Cheryl: I'm gonna jump in with that Mel C quote because I think she's always understood that she's speaking to young fans. 2 Become 1 is actually one of her favorite moments. She says “it's a beautiful song and it had an important message I expect it went over the heads of a lot of our young fans but to be a young girl band mostly shouting and being a bit chaotic and then to have a safe sex message in your song I feel very proud of that now.”
Elyse: Wait that talks about safe sex
Steph: 2 Become One, hello
Elyse: yeah, I know it's about sex is it about safe sex?
Cheryl: They consider the lyric “put it on put it on” and “be a little bit wiser baby” before that to be about condom use.
Elyse: Oh my god, I never thought of that.
Sinead: And at the time when the song came out a lot of like crusty music reviewers in the UK were like don't tell us to have safe sex and they were like I thought it was like patronizing.
Elyse: The to become one is if the condom and the penis become one and it's not about romance. It's just about usage.
Sinead: I can confirm until researching for this episode. I did not know that that was a safe sex reference at all.
Elyse: They were right. It went over our heads.
Steph: We were too young, naive.
Megan: I wonder though someone who's say 5,10 years older than us? Did they pick up on it? Because like if no one did then it's not really a great, effective message.
Sinead: I think so based on the critical reception and some of the things that were said about the song and also like crusty white men getting mad. I think adults understood the reference and it was discussed.
Megan: Who's disgusted by safe sex?
Elyse: It doesn't feel the same, Megan it's not as good for men. Just kidding.
Sinead: For a minute I was like what doesn’t feel the same?
[Laughter]
Elyse: Disgusting. But wait here's something fun to totally wildly speculate on and maybe accidentally do some slander, we'll see if we want to cut it out. Okay, but if we know that a song is about Geri’s relationship with Matt Rowe and then it has a safe sex “put it on put it on be a little bit wiser baby” message. What do we think the story is? Did she leave him out of her book because he is an illegitimate father of a child that none of us know exists and there's a baby Geri out in the world and it was covered up as a scandal. I'm just throwing it out there.
Cheryl: Other idea, he's a terrible lay and that's why he's omitted. And she put the lyric in the song because not only is he a terrible lay, he refused to wear protection.
Elyse: Possible. Maybe he gave her an STI.
Sinead: Based on the state of men Cheryl's theory is probably correct
Elyse: That’s fair
Sinead: So anyway, when 2 Become 1 was released it became the group's third chart topper single in a row. So for keeping track, every single one of them that they’ve released. It was their first Christmas number one selling single, and it sold 462,000 copies in the first week. It became the fifth best selling single of 1996 and it was also the year's fastest selling single too.
Megan: Wait, I'm sorry, what song are we talking about?
Sinead: 2 Become 1.
Megan: How was that a Christmas song?
Sinead: It was released in December.
Megan: Oh.
Sinead: Like they just refer to the music market over that time period, anything that's released in there is considered to be released for like the Christmas buying cycle, basically. But yeah, it's not a holiday. It's not a holiday song.
Steph: It's Jesus and Mary….[gasps] ..No no no... Mary and Joseph….No, I don't…
[laughter]
Sinead: Steph has her religion a little bit confused. I think we should take Jesus fucking out of the episode, just to not piss off Christians.
Ashley: It will be!
Elyse: I don't see how Jesus fucking his mom is gonna piss them off.
[laughter]
Megan: I'm reading a book right now about Jesus's wife. It's all fiction.
Elyse: Woah, did she know about him and his mom?
[laughter]
Cheryl: I actually had a point which is a lot of albums are released for the Christmas season. So that's why the Christmas single is so coveted. Is that like, it's basically ending up in a bunch of people stockings, and yeah, that's why you want the Christmas single.
Sinead: um, yeah, so all of these British and European and Asian record sales, translated into a lot of press and a lot of cash. At the 19 Management party, the Christmas party in 1996, the girl's manager Simon Fuller took them into his private office and handed each of them a $200,000 check, which was their earliest earnings from Spice. And apparently, when given the check, Melanie B didn't even actually have a credit card yet. Um, each member earned 16% of what the Spice Girls earned as an entity. And as was typical for managers, Fuller earned 20% right off the top.
Steph: Wow.
33:34
Cheryl: So at the end of 1996, Spice has been released across Europe, has been really further internationally with Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Canada, which is December 10, of 1996. But they hadn't actually released anything in the United States. They've done extensive press tours internationally, but nothing in the United States and just to sort of set the stage for 1997. The girls released more music and did more promotional work during that time than a lot of groups do in five years.
Ashley Newman, the Virgin Artists and Repertoire head honcho, said “The amount of work the girls did in an 18 month period was probably greater than I've ever seen any act do that I've worked with in my career. They did not stop. They were doing promotion in Japan one minute, doing stuff all throughout Europe the next, and trying to keep the UK in play as well. Because the UK, all the time, wants new photographs, new stories, new gossip.” This speaks to like, the just insanity of the Spice Girls hustle, you know, like they are literally doing international press before they launch in the biggest market imaginable.
Sinead: The American launch of the band required a massive promotional campaign, which started with a performance for a meager 2000 people at a fair in Florida. But it continued with the girls pulling at least 1 12 hour day in radio interviews. The girls also dined with LA’s most influential radio programmers and charmed them with an acapella performance. So they're just trying to get their album out to all these different radio markets.
Phil Quartararo, the president of Virgin Records America was adamant that the band couldn't release music in the States until they had sufficient time to promote it. “America is very insular. They may be a big story internationally, but the consumer in Amarillo or Peoria does not know what a Spice Girl is yet.”
American airwaves at the time were also dominated by hip hop and alternative music, making Virgin really skittish and audiences quite unreceptive to pop music. On January 24, want to be was released as a single and it debuted at number 11 on the Billboard charts, which was the highest ever debut for a non American Act. The Beatles actually debuted at number 12. And per our research, no one has ever beat the Spice Girls so they retain the highest non-American launch number on Billboard. “wannabe” spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, and it was the Spice Girls only number one single in the US. In February of 97 their first album Spice was finally released in the US.
The album debuted at number six on Billboard and it spent five weeks as the number one album, it became the biggest selling album of 1997 in the US with 5.3 million copies sold. Now with the American invasion well underway as well as their presence internationally they were really starting to become a global sensation. And at the time Geri said “we think the average 19 year old girl in Japan is not so different from the girl in Kentucky. We call it girl power but really it's just the confidence to make your dream come true”.
Ashley: That's sweet.
Megan: That's nice.
Elyse & Steph: That is nice
Megan: Clearly though that guy knew what he was doing, about like the pre-hype and all the radio and everything.
Sinead: I mean to this day, the Spice Girls are extremely well established as a pop group in the American pop culture psyche.
Steph: Yeah
Sinead: I don't think it's to the same degree as the UK because I don't think anywhere really matches like where they're from. But yeah, I mean...
Steph: You can't talk about pop music and not end up talking about the Spice Girls.
Cheryl: I also always find it fascinating that like we talk about the Spice Girls, I know Megan touched on this earlier indirectly, but like we talked about the Spice Girls as being super authentic, and like super spontaneous, and like their presentation was like, a little bit off the cuff. And yet every single time they achieve dominance, it's because of exceptional planning. You know, like “Wannabe” had three months to actually gain traction before it was released as a single. And you look at the American tour, the American, like, press tour, because the United States is so spread out - has to be meticulously planned so that you can hit Florida and LA and New York and Middle America. The forethought to say like you cannot come here until you can spend, I think they spend almost six weeks there, doing various things. I want to double check that. But until you can spend like a lot of time here. I think it's like a key part of their success. And like we sort of want to gloss over that when we look at them. Like we want to be like oh yeah, like they're spontaneous and fun and they sew tea towels to dresses, but it's like they are very, they're a very well planned machine.
Sinead: Next time we're going to talk about Spice domination.
[laughter]
Ashley: What does that mean?
Cheryl: I think next time a great summary for next time is we talk about the very very Britishness of the Spice Girls, and the dark side of being very, very British.
Sinead: Which one?
[laughter]
Cheryl: There's lots of dark sides to being very, very British!
Elyse: Boiling food just within an inch of its life.
Steph: And no spice, which is ironic.
Ashley: That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. To see any visuals we talked about in this episode, as well as bonus content, be sure to follow us on Instagram at @spiceinvaderspod.
Spice Invaders is hosted by Sinead O'Brien, Cheryl Stone, Elyse Maxwell, Stephanie Smith, and Megan Arppe-Robertson. It's researched and written by Sinead O'Brien and Cheryl Stone, and produced and edited by me, Ashley McDonough. Thank you to Lucas Benoit for composing our theme song.
Transcript created by: Kevin Gontovnick,Sinéad O'Brien, and Cheryl Stone