At the end of 1997 the Spice Girls were criticised for being everywhere. They had two top ten albums on the charts, over 20 sponsorship deals and the most catchy videos of the 90s on the air. In a true case of tall poppy syndrome, international media outlets went after them harshly. Overexposed and the Spice Girls were used in conjunction with each other and it seemed that by the first full year of their career that people had already had enough of them.
Instead of letting the criticism get to them and shying away from the spotlight, the five girls took all the negatives and made them into one hell of a film clip, which is why I am voting the Spice Up Your Life film clip as the band's best.
For a long time Wannabe was my stand out. The nature of the video clip and the energy each girl bought to their performance represented their very essence. Fearless, intimidating, headstrong and loud, the Spice Girls took over the pub they went in to much like they took over the music world. However, there is something about the idea that the Spice Girls were just unapologetically themselves in the Spice Up Your Life film clip that makes me happy. When people enter the entertainment industry, their personalities are hijacked by record executives trying to make them into the perfect brand, but that was not the Spice Girls. They were going to be whoever they wanted to be and express it in any way they saw fit.
As the chaotic, dance pop and Latin influenced beat kicks in, you just can't seem to control the movement of your feet, arms or legs. They haven't even sung a word yet and you already want to dance. It only gets better when the visuals kick in and you see the Spice Girls in all their glory. In a futuristic setting, they fly through the sky, looking at the abandoned streets that are juxtaposed with the vibrant posters celebrating all things Spice. From Spice theatre, to Spice girls coffee, the girls have taken over the world and the images of them flying through the sky act as a means to show that the entire world is theirs for the taking.
When the girls leave the aircraft and fly through the streets on hoverboards, they are yelling Spice Up Your Life into the universe and if that isn't a message to everybody to live a little louder, love a little better and scream a little higher, I don't know what is.
While Spice Up Your Life might not be the band's best song, the film clip is masterful. I appreciate visual artworks with undertones that speak to greater issues or things, and Spice Up Your Life does just that. At a time where the world was recoiling from Spice overload, they decided to create a song for the world, telling them that they weren't going anywhere and in fact, they planned to stay on long enough to take over the entire world.
The song however has not been without controversy in recent years. In a key scene in the third season of Breaking Bad, (the show about drugs) the song is featured and apparently slamming it to the left and shaking it to the right are key steps in the cooking of crystal meth. Pause for effect and shock. Believe whatever you like, but the Spice Girls weren't talking about cooking meth for goodness sake, they were quite obviously giving us all the exact recipe and measurements to Spice up our lives.
Like I don't even know why I'm mentioning this second controversy, but I am a journalist and I do have to report all of the facts, so, the second controversy involves- and you've probably already guessed it- Ginger freaking Spice. For years drunk ladies and gays in clubs have been singing along to the song and screaming I SEE YA HOLD TIGHT... yellow man in Timbuktu, colour for both me and you, Kung Fu fighting... opps I got carried away there. Anyway, apparently there is no such thing as the lyrics 'I see ya'.
Posting a teaser to her Instagram in light of the 2019 reunion news, Geri captioned a picture 'Hai-Si-ja- hold tight.' Like, what are those words? Geri is so p.c enough that she would want to take a momentous occasion like the Spice Girls reuniting to subtly shame us all into realising that we have been singing the wrong lyrics for two whole decades. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed that Geri keeps doing these things.
Nevertheless, by clearing the lyrics up, Geri has allowed us to appreciate a new facet of the Spice Girls- the fact that they are multilingual. Instead of just singing 'yes' they decided to show off their Japanese, Spanish and German language skills and it kind of makes me love them more because they appear to be so cultured!
So Geri, in the face of you trying to do something horrible (again), I am flipping the script and labelling the Spice Up Your Life film clip as the band's best. It spoke to their endurance, fearlessness and utter star power that they could create a world that belonged to them and expect everyone to get on board- which they did.
Honestly though, this band is everything. Spice Girls forever might just be my slogan during my campaign to win the Prime Ministership of Australia come this federal election.
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