Songoftheday 8/12/20 - If you want my future forget my past, if you wanna get with me better make it fast...

 

 

"Wannabe" - Spice Girls

from the album Spice (1996 UK/1997 US)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 22

 

Today's song of the day comes from the British female vocal group Spice Girls, who were assembled in London in the mid-1990s by music managers Bob and Chris Herbert. After putting hundreds of women through multiple tryouts, they originally put together Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Geri Halliwell, Victoria Adams, and Michelle Stephenson as "Touch". Working on new material,  Stephenson was unceremoniously booted and replaced by Emma Bunton. After becoming soured on the Herbert's style and control, then they were canned in favor of British power-player Simon Fuller, who got them signed on both sides of the Atlantic. The Girls released they debut single "Wannabe" in the UK in the summer of 1996. A brash and straightforward pop ditty that proclaimed their sisterhood wins over anything else, the song had featured from (almost) all of the quintet, with even rap verses from Brown and Halliwell. To even solidify their gung-ho-ness, the song was written by the group along with producers Richard Stannard and Matt Rowe, and mixed by Mike "Spike" Stent. Adopting nickname persona's of Scary (Mel B), Sporty (Mel C), Baby (Emma), Ginger (Geri) and Posh (Victoria), in England, where boybands like Take That, Boyzone, and Five ruled the charts, they fit right in. What was surprising is that when it came to bringing that success to American months later, they did what most UK boybands couldn't with such massive acceptance out of the gate. The iconic music video didn't hurt either...

In the U.S., "Wannabe" topped the pop chart for a month starting in February of 1997. The song also climbed to #27 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 radio list, while the remixes of the track helped it rise to #20 on their Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the song was even more massive, taking seven weeks at #1 in their native Britain, while also going to the top in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The single also made the top ten in Austria (#2), Czech Republic (#2), Italy (#3), Canada (#9), and Iceland (#9). Their debut album, Spice, topped the sales chart on both sides of the Atlantic, eventually selling over seven million copies in the U.S..

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Here's the Spice Girls being introduced by boy band legend himself Robbie Williams on Top of the Pops in the UK in 1996...

and live in concert in 1997...

and as they hit America on Regis & Kathie Lee in 1997...

and again on their Spice World tour in 1998...

In 2007, new remixes of "Wannabe" by Motiv8 for their greatest hits album caused the song to re-enter the Dance Club Play chart in Billboard, overtaking the original to peak at #15...

And lastly on their "comeback" tour in New York in 2019...

Up tomorrow: A producer/record label head takes the center stage himself.