Following in the footsteps of Take That and New Kids on the Block – two other bubblegum-pop groups that were also huge in England – Spice Girls offer a watered-down mix of hip-hop and cheesy pop balladry. And like New Kids on the Block, Spice Girls are five attractive young things, each with a distinct personality, a la the Village People, brought together by a manager with a marketing concept.
One part of that concept has the Girls preaching, "Girl power!" – a co-optation more heinous than any riot grrrl's worst nightmare. Spice Girls' idea of power seems to be flaunting that they are all that, but the lyrics make Alanis Morissette's sound like Patti Smith's. A
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few nuggets: "If you want to get with me, better make it fast" ("Wannabe"); "I know you want to get with me" ("Last Time Lover"); "Show me how good you are" (Who Do You Think Your Are?). Despite their pro-woman posing, the Girls don't get bogged down by anything deeper than mugging for promo shots and giving out tips on getting boys in bed.
Wild Orchid are three hot-looking women – one of whom closely resembles Wendy Wilson of Wilson Phillips – singing melodramatic songs with flat melodies about their dysfunctional relationships. They're like the friends whom you want to slap upside the head while forcing them to read Women Who Love Too Much. They do have much better voices than Spice Girls, but at least the members of Spice Girls project lots of false confidence. I'll take cocky over whiny any day. (RS 756)
CHRISTINA KELLY
On "Spiceworld," the Spice Girls take us deep into pop's heart of lightness, a happy place filled not with music of good taste but with music that tastes good – at least to a substantial portion of the planet. Listen closely to Spiceworld and hear the sparkling if scary sound of a universal pop phenomenon in full bloom. Like it or not, the Spice Girls are 1997's Fab Five, only this time there's nothing but cheeky Cute Ones. Time will tell whether their upcoming feature film will prove to be A Hard Day's Spice or a too-Vanilla Cool as Spice, but in the short run, it's foolish to bet against them.
To get to the toppermost of the poppermost, the Spice Girls have traded shamelessly – which is not to say shamefully – on their much-vaunted Girl Power, selling themselves as feminist cheesecake. On Spiceworld, they've added a sexy new curve to the mix – a learning curve. The act behind the smash "Wannabe" sounded like wanna-be's themselves on some of their hit-and-miss debut effort, Spice, an album that made Hanson's weightier Middle of Nowhere look like Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues Singers. Spiceworld is, relatively speaking, a masterful effort; at its best, it reaches creative heights that are downright Bananaramian.
Variety is the spice of Spiceworld. The LP seems less a song cycle than a series of aural production numbers. "Spice Up Your Life," the first single, is a global call to arms and legs with a distinct carnivallike flavor and a message of Up With Spice People positivity. "Stop" is a retro, Supremes-lite confection that's as undeniable as it is unoriginal. The big finish, "The Lady Is a Vamp," is a vaudevillian track that name-checks Jackie O., Twiggy and Ziggy Marley among those who the Spice Girls apparently feel are "legends built to last."
The Spices and their producers borrow freely from legends of all stripes here. "Never Give Up" quotes Earth, Wind and Fire's "Let's Groove," and "Do It" recalls Madonna's "Express Yourself." The production throughout is a cunning rehash of hip-hop and pop clichés – "Denying," for instance, suggests Olivia Newton John produced by Dr. Dre. That's better, certainly, than "Viva Forever," a big ballad that is about as convincing as the Spices' Spanish accents. Then there's the fizzy "Move Over," a nifty cross-promotion of a song that you might have heard first in the Spice Girls' Pepsi-Cola ads.
Of course, one could accuse the group of selling out, but what would they be selling? Spiceworld is not an artistic statement for critics to autopsy – it's well-made music to Stairmaster to, and by that standard the whole thing works rather well. One might have expected the Spices to call in hired guns like Babyface, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, or David Foster to make the great pop leap forward, but almost movingly they've stayed with the guys who brought them to the pop prom: p
