Spice Girls - Spice Up Your Life

August 14, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

These girls were a phenomenon in the late 90s I was a huge fan when I was younger, and could you blame me? I was only 5-7 years old. After watching them on the closing ceremony of the Olympics I knew one of their videos would be popping up on this blog. I chose this one because the song has been stuck in my head all day, and it has in fact managed to calm down my nerves about my results, which I get on Thursday. Spice Girls consisted of Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Mel B (Melanie Brown), Mel C (Melanie Chrisholm) and Victoria Beckham. They all had "spice" names within the group, they were called Baby Spice, Ginger Spice, Scary Spice, Sporty Spice and Posh Spice respectively. Geri left the band to do her own thing leaving the 4 remaining girls to release one last album together in 2000, they soon disbanded and it looked like there will be no reunion. Then after a lot of speculation in 2007/2008 they did a comeback reunion tour with a greatest hits album and a new single called "Headlines (Friendship Never Dies)" the album and single didn't perform as well as expected, the girls also found it difficult as they are all mothers and so being away from their children was difficult too, so it was never a full-on reunion. Now rumours have came up again, some of them are so strong that there are quotes from the band members. But Victoria has her own life in the states, according to rumours she will not be re-joining the band, meaning if the Spice Girls come back for good, it might be a four-piece again.

"Spice Up Your Life" was written by Matte Rowe, Richard Stannard and Spice Girls. It was inspired by Bollywood films and the colour they show, they found it difficult to get it into a song, but they sure did it. The girls had very little inspiration by this point as they were also filming "Spice World" which was a Spice Girls film. They were so busy that they had little time to do anything, the worst part was that the girls wanted a circus-themed music video, but the director had this idea instead, the girls were so drained by then that they couldn't be bothered to argue and they just went along with it. Was it the right choice? I'll never know as they never actually filmed this so-called circus-themed video, but no matter what they did it probably would've turned out great anyway.

This music video is definitely different. It was also considered as way before its time. If it were released today, it would fit perfectly, there would obviously be the few changes that is needed such as the graphics and the storyline, they would definitely make it much more clearer.

To be honest I never knew what this video was about when I first saw it, I must have been only 4/5, but even now I'm not sure what it is about, except that I might understand it a little bit better, so here goes: The girls have taken over the world, but it isn't the way it's supposed to be, it's dreary, it's horrible and definitely dark. The only exciting thing is the posters and advertisement, which are all about the Spice Girls, there is even Spice Girls Coffee! That look a lot like Starbucks. They are ruling the world and all we can watch on TV is the Spice Girls.

It definitely resembles their promotional side, you couldn't go through a whole week back then without seeing them pop up on one TV show or another. They promoted, promoted, promoted, and that is essentially what got them their number ones. Nowadays it's not like that, fair enough you can still go on TV shows and promote, I know quite a few artists who have done it, but the problem is the spots are usually on daytime TV and we already have so many channels, you might not be watching, at the end of the day it might help the sales, but not by much.

Overall, a great pop group that we all totally miss. Fine I agree they are my guilty pleasure, HEY everyone's got one right? And I was super-excited when they appeared on the Olympics Closing Ceremony. This video on the other hand is missing the Spice Girls enthusiasm, where is all the colour and the fun? I imagine a spice world to be the total opposite of what is shown in this video, I feel like I want to paint that world, maybe the girls should have been doing that in the video! I have my fingers crossed that a proper comeback will happen in the future, but to be honest I don't really want to get my hopes up.