Spice Girls
photo: movie stars and rockets · cc by 2.0 ↗The Spice Girls emerged from mid-1990s London as a five-piece engineered around a simple, potent idea: five sharply drawn personalities selling empowerment as pop spectacle under the banner of 'girl power.' Their 1996 debut 'Wannabe' made them a global phenomenon and the best-selling girl group in history, blending bubblegum hooks, dance-pop, and R&B-lite balladry. Though they splintered by the end of the decade, they rewrote the commercial blueprint for the modern girl group.
The Spice Girls modeled their assertive, self-possessed 'girl power' pitch on Madonna, the reigning example of a woman steering her own pop image and sexuality on her own terms.
listen forLine up Madonna's 'Express Yourself' with the Spice Girls' 'Spice Up Your Life' — both are brassy, horn-and-beat empowerment anthems that turn self-assertion into a dancefloor command.
Coming up as they did in the mid-'90s, the Spice Girls absorbed the sound of contemporaneous R&B-pop girl groups like TLC, whose smooth harmonies and conversational cool shaped the era's pop.
listen forPlay TLC's 'Waterfalls' before the Spice Girls' 'Say You'll Be There' — both glide on a laid-back R&B-pop groove and trade smooth, interlocking vocal lines rather than leaning on one lead.
The Spice Girls' gift for airtight, singalong melody sits in the tradition of ABBA, whose meticulously crafted hooks and harmonies set the standard for pure European pop songcraft.
listen forSet ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' next to the Spice Girls' '2 Become 1' — different tempos, but both prize an immaculately harmonized chorus where the melody itself carries all the feeling.