Viva Forever ’96 – a princely year for Spice Girls (and boys)
Twenty five years ago, the Spice Girls released Wannabe, and Girl Power burst into British cultural life. “Through all of the grunge that had been happening, it was an explosion of joy and enjoyment,” said fellow pop star KT Tunstall, who was 21 at the time, contributing to Spice Up Your Life: 25 Years of Girl Power (Radio 2, Saturday), a documentary marking the story of the band’s rise to fame in 1996.
This month on Radio 2 is the Summer of 96 season, celebrating 25 years since a summer that, in retrospect, looks like a real pop culture purple patch. It also feels as if it was only yesterday. In the UK, Britpop and Girl Power collided in Cool Britannia, while if you went to the cinema in 1996 you could choose between Trainspotting, Fargo, Toy Story, Mission: Impossible, Scream and many more. The music and films of that year still feel fresh. What about sport? Well, 1996 just happens to be the year in which the England football team made it to the semi-finals of the Euros. We’re all in the summer of 1996 now.
And it’s been a surprising comfort to travel back there via Radio 2’s trip down memory lane, especially in programmes as deftly made as Spice Up Your Life, in which the story from
A to Z was presented by Richard E Grant, who, unforgettably, played the Spice Girls’ manager in the film Spice World. He recalled meeting the band during production of the film, having been persuaded to take the part by his young daughter, and described them as “like popcorn going off in a box”.
The Spice Girls themselves didn’t take part in the documentary (though there were some fun archive clips of their heyday, including their effervescent first appearance on Simon Mayo’s Radio 1 show, in which they flirted with him outrageously). And there were ample contributions from admiring fellow pop stars, including Tunstall and an ambitious pre-fame Claire Richards from Steps: “I honestly kept thinking, ‘I could be Baby Spice’”.
Mollie King from The Saturdays is a little younger, but she and her sisters were hooked on the Spice Girls. “They had so much power around them,” she said. “They were so enthusiastic. They were this powerful unit of girls coming together, and instantly I wanted to be part of this girl gang.” Zoe Ball said that “the Spice Girls redefined feminism for a whole generation – Girl Power went worldwide.”
Most surprising, then, were the ardent confessions of Olly Murs, who declared himself to be a diehard Spice Girls superfan. “I bought all their albums… I know every lyric to every song… I met all of them. I’ve had a picture with all of them individually. Who else has that? It’s one of my big achievements in life.” He sounded as if his Spice Girls obsession was almost more important to him than his own music career.
The 1990s themselves were also a time of nostalgia and retrospective, as explored in the fascinating The Beatles – Reborn in 1996! (Radio 2, Sunday). This was the year that The Beatles Anthology project was released, introducing the Fab Four to a new generation of fans while also revealing the enormous wealth of artistry and creativity that had surrounded their work.
Geoff Lloyd presented a strong case for the Anthology recordings as essential listening for Beatles fans, and traced their influence on the other bands of the 1990s, from Oasis to, yes, the Spice Girls. The Spice Girls, after all, were the fastest-selling British act since The Beatles.
This Radio 2 season isn’t about revelations or exclusives. Full of genuine fans speaking with love about their favourite music and happiest memories, it feels completely heartwarming.
Another key Spice Girls association, somewhat bizarrely, is the Prince of Wales, who himself made a brief appearance on hospital radio this weekend, introducing some of his favourite pop songs (Givin’ Up, Givin’ In by The Three Degrees; Upside Down by Diana Ross; Don’t Rain on My Parade by Barbra Streisand) and thanking NHS workers and volunteers for their efforts during the pandemic. Memorably, Geri Halliwell kissed Prince Charles at a public event in 1996 and claimed to have patted the royal heir’s bottom, later calling him a Spice Boy, and Mel B is said to have told him he should get his tongue pierced. When Halliwell left the band in 1998, the Prince is reported to have written to her personally, saying, “The group will not be the same without you.”
Oh, the Nineties. Is it really so far away? From a distance, it feels like a much more exuberant, less anxious, less stuffy time. Thankfully, radio and music have the power to take us back there in an instant.