Spice Girls’ debut ‘Wannabe’ turns 30, amid reunion talk

The Spice Girls burst onto the music scene with the release of their infectious debut “Wannabe” 30 years ago on Friday, carving a place in pop history championing Girl Power, and leaving their mark on fashion and global culture. The British group of five young women formed in 1994, and the irrepressibly catchy “Wannabe” was released on June 26, 1996, initially in Asia. It shot swiftly up the charts to number one in Britain, the United States and dozens of other countries. “They weren’t just a throwaway pop band,” Dominic Mohan, a former editor of The Sun tabloid who covered the British music scene at the time, told AFP. “They were very spirited and they had quite strong messages as well, about feminism and about girl power and about being who you are.”

And he said of “Wannabe”: “It’s one of those records, as soon as you hear it you realise that it’s going to go down in history.” He has curated an exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London entitled “1996: 30 Years on” running until mid-September, which features the Spice Girls and some of their iconic looks. Band member Mel B loaned the leopard-skin catsuit she wore to belt out “Wannabe” at the 1997 Brit Awards, where the song won two prizes. Unlike previous girl groups in matching outfits, each of the five Spice Girls had their own individual style.

Mel B, short for Melanie Brown, also known as Scary Spice, wore animal prints, Posh Spice Victoria Adams, now Beckham, had a bob and dark dresses and Baby Spice Emma Bunton preferred pastels and bunches. Mel C, Melanie Chisholm or Sporty Spice, favoured sports gear and Geri Halliwell, or Ginger Spice due to her red hair, wore a short, short Union Jack dress and boots for the Brits performance.

“Wannabe” with its catchy refrain — “I’ll tell you want I want, what I really, really want” and its insistence that “friendship never ends” — became an anthem for a generation of young women. It has been played almost 1.5 billion times on Spotify. The anniversary has revived talk of a possible reunion, although the bandmates have not all performed together since the 2012 London Olympics. “It’s our 30th anniversary, I do think we should be doing something,” Brown told the Press Association this month. “We’re all talking about it”, but “nothing has been confirmed”. The women are said to have remained close, with four of them joining celebrations for Emma Bunton’s 50th birthday earlier this year.

In a sign of their lasting legacy, current stars including Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Adele and Charli XCX have cited their music as an influence. “There’s a tendency, I think, for people to look back and think Spice Girls were really bubblegum pop,” Joel Gray, a lecturer in media, art and communications at Sheffield Hallam University, told AFP. But he argued “they actually had much more of a punk feel.”

Unlike some boybands of the era such as Take That, the group have rarely performed together since splitting in 1998 and going on to build successful careers, such as Victoria Beckham’s fashion label. All five members sang at the 2012 Olympics, and their most recent performance was in 2019, without Beckham. Given the “Wannabe” anniversary, “I would have thought that they might re-form ... for just maybe a one-off kind of gig or a few dates,” said Mohan. So far, the group have only announced a T-shirt and a vinyl issue of “Wannabe”.

“I don’t think we’re going to see a permanent full-time reunion, but I could absolutely see them doing something again as a group,” said Grey. “What I’ve learned with the Spice Girls is never say never.”

Agence France-Presse