The Spice Girls test their shelf life
By SHARON STEEL | January 22, 2008
GIRL POWER! Greatest Hits is a reminder of how the Girls’ brand of lusty, post-femmy pop found its rose-gold moment back in 1996. |
There is a part of me that sympathizes with Victoria Beckham. She behaves like such an Alpha Spice: her shellacked “Pob” hairstyle, her layers of self-tanner, her frozen frowny face. It would be easy to hate her for her aloof snobbishness and a fashion sense that’s incorrigible even though she has unlimited access to all things sartorial. (Oh, how she abuses this privilege!) Of course, Beckham is no different from most horribly conceited individuals — she’s drowning in an ocean of insecurity she masks with tottering heels and suffocating corset tops. Even being married to World Soccer Idol David Beckham and mother-henning Katie Holmes into adopting her exact pageboy ’do doesn’t seem to have built much confidence. It’s a shame, really, that she can’t subscribe to the mantra that she herself helped unleash. Pretty clothes and hot husband aside, it’s hard for a modern woman to go through life with a spring in her step sans that little voice inside chanting “Girl Power!” — particularly for those of us who don’t have Adonis personified waking up next to us in the morning.
Beckham might be singing it outwardly — it’s her job, after all — but her bandmates are the ones who seem to mean it. The Spice Girls kicked off their reunion World Tour in Vancouver on December 2 and were booked for more than a dozen performances in their native England, where 23,000 tickets for the London shows sold out in 38 seconds. (The US tour kicks off January 30 at the TD Banknorth Garden.) Reviewers were re-smitten with the Spice Girls’ bacchanalian pop magic. So the good news is that Beckham is pretty much the only Spice who hasn’t got her game on (did she even have it to begin with?), because as a group the Spice Girls can kill a live gig. And though their latest album, Greatest Hits (Virgin), gets no points for originality, it’s an interesting reminder of how their brand of lusty, post-femmy pop music found its rose-gold moment back in 1996.
Whether that moment can find itself again, in 2008, isn’t really the question: pop music has changed too drastically, and the Spice Girls are, for the most part, Spice Moms. So this is more of an exercise in nostalgia than a genuine attempt to “come back.” But, please — the Spice Girls aren’t trying to be Led Zeppelin. They’re watching the girl-group glitter fall, having fun, and making bank as they air out their old battle cries. These bitches are nothing if not shameless self-promoters, and given the unpredictable horror show that is the modern recording industry, can you fault them for that?
Related:
Owing muses, Mommy, what's with Michael?, 2. Chris Brown, More
- Owing muses
A few days after I graduated from high school, the Internet showed up. "Well," I thought to myself. "That's just fucking great."
- Mommy, what's with Michael?
" After I got HIStory , I played it incessantly. It was the greatest, strangest, angriest, most bizarre thing I ever heard. Michael Jackson is this iconic persona..."
- 2. Chris Brown
Seems like yesterday that Chris Brown was just another cute, precocious R&B comer with an unfortunate overbite and an uncanny knack for mimicking Michael Jackson’s choreography. Now this little punk is allegedly imitating Ike Turner’s worst traits — and bringing new meaning to the phrase “hit record.” And while the US is trying to exit painful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, morons like Chris Brown are starting international incidents — Rihanna is the cultural ambassador of Barbados. Thanks for opening another front for us in the Caribbean, asshole.
- The Big Hurt: The decade ahead
As a new decade dawns, it's time to cast a curious eye toward the future.
- Guest lists 2007
Phoenix and WFNX staffers submit their ten best albums of the year
- The 100 unsexiest men 2007: 10-1
These guys couldn't turn on a radio
- Photos: Most popular slideshows of 2009
Our most popular slideshows from the last year: including Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Dale Bozzio's crazy cat house, and much more.
- It Does Come Easy
Ringo Starr was the best artist in the Beatles. And, I believe, the best artist to appear on Shining Time Station too. (Sorry, George Carlin.) It feels really weird to say, but it's the undisputable conclusion I drew from seeing "Ringo Starr — Artist" at Chabot Fine Art Gallery (379 Atwells Avenue, Providence, through June 27).
- Happy endings
The end is nigh! And I’m not talking about the mortgage market.
- More than a feeling
The centerpiece of the Museum of Fine Arts' "Contemporary Outlook: Seeing Songs" is Candice Breitz's 2005 Queen (A Portrait of Madonna), a wall of 30 televisions, each showing a different Madonna fan singing a cappella to her 1990 greatest-hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection. They wear headphones, bob their heads, sing aloud to music we can't hear.
- Production lines
The guy builds songs.
- Less
Topics:
Music Features
, Madonna (Entertainer), Katie Holmes, Emma Bunton, More
, Madonna (Entertainer), Katie Holmes, Emma Bunton, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Music Stars, Music, Pop and Rock Music, Concerts and Tour Dates, Culture and Lifestyle, Less