If you don't know who the Spice Girls are, I have only one question for you. Where have you been for the past 12 years? Since the release of their first single, "Wannabe," in 1996, the Spice Girls have been the most popular and successful female pop group of all time.
In 1996, Top of the Pops gave the girls their nicknames - "Baby Spice" (Emma Bunton), "Scary Spice" (Melanie Brown), "Posh Spice" (Victoria Adams, now Beckham), "Sporty Spice" (Melanie Chisholm) and "Ginger Spice" (Geri Halliwell) - all of who are now recognized as the Spice Girls.
The Spice Girls' many accomplishments include total record sales of more than 55 million, "Wannabe" being the highest-sold single by an all-female group, one MTV Video Music Award, three MTV Europe Awards, three American Music Awards, three World Music Awards and four BRIT Awards. They released two hit albums, Spice, in February 1997, and Spiceworld, only nine months later.
The Spice Girls are most known for their phrase "Girl Power," which made its way into the Oxford English Dictionary, and is defined as "a self-reliant attitude among girls and young women manifested in ambition, assertiveness and individualism." The Spice Girls lived and breathed girl power as heard in their songs and witnessed in their film, Spice World: The Movie (which was ridiculous and awesome at the same time).
Wikipedia says that it was the concept of girl power that led them to be popular role models because it also "emphasized the importance of strong, loyal friendship among females." Unfortunately, in 1998, that friendship was over for Ginger, and she left the band. Forever was released in 2000 with only four members and limited success. The band separated soon after in February 2001.
The Spice Girls announced their reunion tour on June 28, 2007, and since then, all little girls (and big girls who haven't quite grown up) have been awaiting the day when they will be able to see them in concert. In fact, the Spice Girls' reunion tour shows in London sold out their 23,000 tickets in 38 seconds. The response in the U.S. was also great, but tour dates in Sydney, Capetown, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Buenos Aires have been canceled due to the girls' personal and family commitments.
As a huge Spice Girls fanatic in 1998, getting tickets to see them for my sixth grade graduation was the best gift. Ever. On the day of the concert, I got dressed up as Sporty Spice (my sisters were dressed as Posh and Baby), and went to see the show at the PNC Bank Arts Center. It was my first concert and one that I will always remember. Unfortunately, at this time, Ginger was no longer a part of the group and Sporty performed her parts.
My college graduation gift (to myself) was a pair of Spice Girl tickets. Yeah, I paid a lot of money for it. Yeah, I got made fun of by a lot of people, but, surprisingly, more people were envious than were ridiculing me.
On Feb. 6, 2008, at Nassau Coliseum, the Spice Girls reunited to play a killer show. There was so much glitter and so many sequined things onstage that my eyes burned. There were so many girls screaming before they started that I was near to being deaf. But when the Spice Girls came out, that's when none of that mattered anymore because there they were, together, as a group, singing songs that I have loved since I was 12 years old.
These were the same Spice Girls that I saw in 1999, only this time with costumes that were slightly racier. For one song, Ginger wore her signature Union Jack dress (with lots of sequins), and all was right in the (spice)world. They sang many songs off of Spice and Spiceworld, "Holler" off of Forever and they also did their new single "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)," released in 2007. The show opened and closed with "Spice Up Your Life," along with a great dance number and tribute to many of the world's different.
Each member also did her own solo performance. Scary did "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz, Sporty did her song "I Turn To You," Ginger did "It's Raining Men," Baby did a good song that I can't identify and Posh walked down a runway to RuPaul's "Supermodel," during which she didn't actually sing. This section of the show proved that these girls can sing (except, of course, for Posh), and can sing well.
The best thing about the Spice Girls' reunion tour was that it was like a giant party. They sang songs like "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang, while, in the audience, girls dressed as their favorite Spice Girl and danced along. The Spice Girls changed costumes eight times, had about 15 backup dancers, amazing dance routines, and more lights, video screens and confetti than I have ever seen at a concert. In short, they really planned a phenomenal reunion tour.
Sadly, the group has no plans to stay together and write more records. It seems that this reunion tour was only for the sake of touring. For the girls of today looking for girl power in the media, they'll have to look a lot harder than the girls of this generation.
Editor's Note: It is not only females who were excited about this epic reunion. Yours truly was quite excited, but, due to a lack of funds, I was unable to go. I cut myself every night in regret. Thanks for rubbing it in Lindsey. Let's see how much longer you work for this section.
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