25 Years Of Spice Girls

It was 25 years ago today that we'd been getting used to life without Take That, but then Gary Barlow topped the charts with his solo debut "Forever Love" which was the first solo hit for any Take That member. It certainly seemed the big news on the day, Take That were finished but now we're going to get Take That x 5 dominating the charts via solo careers.

Little did we know it was the record entering the charts at number 3 that was a sign of what was to come. That record of course was "Wannabe" by Spice Girls. I listened to that Top 40 countdown and it wasn't the first time I'd heard the record, but it was the first time I found out who it was and what it was. Some blurb was given about "girl power" and how they all have their individual styles etc. 

The record itself was dreadful, but I wasn't really that surprised when it topped the charts the following week. I never expected it to stay at number one the rest of the summer though, nor did I expect them to be back with other records.

Looking back at the history books though there was a pretty obvious gap in the market that was yet to be filled until the Spice Girls came along.

Female vocal groups were nothing new and there was no shortage of successful female R&B groups from America such as En Vogue, TLC and SWV. In the UK Eternal were basically the UK answer to those groups. In terms of pop groups who weren't trying to be anything other than pop, there hadn't been anyone since Bananarama who themselves pretty much had a monopoly on British female vocal groups for most of the 80s.

At school in the early to mid-90s there was a clear gender divide when it came to music tastes, the males would listen to more specialist genres like grunge, rave etc and the females would listen to pop music. There were some exceptions, but that was the general rule.

With a large audience looking for their next favourite group now Take That were no more, filling that gap with another boy band may have been more difficult because a like for like replacement would never be as good as the original. With the Spice Girls though the message to the largely female potential audience was that the cheesy pop box would be ticked, but this time it's girl power and an opportunity to defeat all these other boy bands trying to be Take That. It worked.

It didn't stop at that though. Many female Take That fans had a Take That member who they fancied. This time it was the turn of the males to pick a Spice Girl they fancied. Obviously fancying someone doesn't mean you're going to go out and buy there music, but they'd taken care of this by also selling merchandise such as posters of the Spice Girls in Baywatch swimsuits. 

A countless number of girl groups have come and gone since with varying degrees of success. We are back to the monopoly of Little Mix now though and I suspect once they call it a day that will be the end of the British girl group.