Spice Girls legacy

I remember thinking at the time (relatively deep thoughts for a fourteen year old) that the implication of "Wannabe" whalloping whatever that Gary Barlow song was that UK pop was moving away from the "classic songwriting" discourse that was so strong at the time (most likely as a result of britpop), but then All Saints' "Never Ever" disproved my theory. Oh well.

Unfortunately, their legacy was every record company in the world marketing shit girl bands, who had neither the songs or anything else required to get anywhere. (I see All Saints as the odd one out, though). Also boy/girl bands, i.e. Steps (who actually have tunes!). It was kind of good and bad.
Also: Increased awareness of British music in America? I kind of remember thinking at the time (And I was 15, BTW) that Oasis were being constantly described as the new Beatles, that if anything the Spice Girls were, since they had managed to crack America in a larger way. Don't know if this affected British music sales or not, that was just a guess.

Proved that Americans like foreign bands best when they live up to some anachronistic stereotype, the SGs were the Austin Powers of pop.

Ridiculous comment from Quantick. They kicked out what exactly? Their legacy - nothing worth having. A schism like punk? Clearly not, since nothing changed afterwards. The last schism was when 'rock' and 'dance' diverged in, when? 1988?

We're far too kind to people like the Spice Girls - sure it's kind of fun, kind of harmless, pop. Also totally worthless.

I'm inclined to agree with you Dr C. The reason I mentioned it is coz' Quantick is usually pretty clued up and so I thought it bears examination. It seems now more like a moment of collective madness when things went totally wild and we return back to the normal humdrum of poplife.

As to their legacy, well Posh has obviously been buliding up Beckham's leg muscles to great effect.

DQ is very anti-rock, pro-pop: he reads Pistols (correctly) as in the final analysis an anti-rock effect (whatever their own content); Spicers were a nuclear assault on intensely tiresome and preeningly unimaginative mid-90s britrock mainstream. >>> powershift in industry practice; last two-three years have been best for pop since 81-83? Wannabe punched the hole.

(DQ is also a sarcastic fellow who likes to turn cliches on their heads.)

I think there's a mutual element. Just like the Sex Pistols, the Spice Girls were about (female) independence. (In the "Filth & The fury" Rotten talks about women being worth just as much as men for the first time... or something like that.) Maybe that is what Quantick is referring to? I think the Spice Girls were much more than just the music. All these young girls identified with the Spice Girls. The message was "being yourself, not caring about others", just like with punk... Ah hell, I don't know.

If the Spicers were a nuclear assault on dull Britpop, they were singularly unsucessful judging by the success of Travis, Stereophonics etc

Maybe it's too soon to judge their effect. If as Nathalie say's it was the 10-12 year olds who were empowered by them it may be another 5-10 years before we see the first fruits of their influence.

Whatever happened to the one they called Posh? You never hear about her anymore, did she just drop off the radar of celebrity publicity? What I would really like is to be able to turn around and see her spiky insectoid face staring at me no matter which way I look, trapped in a crossfire of front-page grins and publicity-seeking glossy-mag pointlessness. Wouldn't that be grand? Just imagine. Didn't she marry some boxer?

i'm being sarcastic

Billy, I think the point was that the Spice Girls were an assault on the idea that dull Britpop bands were actually pop music.

Whether they were an assault on Britpop or not, most of their music was still shit. Which I have a huge problem with. People like to credit the Spice Girls with hella lot more than they are worth just because they're looking with rose-colored glasses at the whole affair. Talentless, self-righteous hags with about three really good songs and maybe one or two listenable songs on top of that - I mean, give me pretty much anything anyday over the majority of the Spicers catalog. Which is unfortunate cos really "Annoying Female Brit Menudo" is something that could've been way better than it was.

And I suppose that's what my problem is with this increasingly large Spice Girls myth: it could've been so good and it wasn't. That's a fucking shame and a half.

In the US The Spice Girls were the ones who opened the door for all the manufactured Disney teen-pop of the last few years. Their real legacy has nothing to do with music, it was shifting the gears of the music industry back into cranking out straight-up unit shifting pop acts.

There are no schisms or anything like that. It is like saying that Ford Motor Company made a political artistic statement by focusing the sales and promotion efforts on Sports Utility Vehicles in the late 90's rather thann 4-door sedans...

It is just a business and Nirvana and Pearl Jam are every bit as fake and processed as the spice girls ever were. Music is just another product, it is no different from laundry detergent or trainers. The Majors throw a lot of mud at the wall, and whatever sticks they make 30 more of.

Their legacy is that they happened to be the mud that enabled backstreet/nsync/britney... to get the label backing that they needed to succeed. They were the act that made the majors think that it was safe to make plastic music again because the storm of grunge "authenticity" was finally over.

Why is this being discussed? They were Josie and the Pussycats.

detegent trainers and music all better since majors allowed a free hand

indie detergent = carbolic and a big stone by the river