spice is nice

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

At the gym this morning I got all confused because a) they had GMTV on the screen where they usually have the BBC and b) because they were interviewing the Spice Girls and on the screen it said 'Today'. After I had realised that a) 'Today' was the name of the programme and b) this was not the real Spice Girls as they are now and c) nor was it a tribute band, I switched my headphones to the little box on the machine to listen to the interview. It turned out to be a repeat (well, duh) of the FIRST appearance of the Spice Girls on GMTV, TEN YEARS AGO TODAY. Sporty claimed that they were all 'naughty girls' and then they mimed to 'Wannabe'. ('We wrote it ourselves and we're really proud of that' says Geri.)

TEN YEARS since the first zig-a-zig-ah! Blimey, eh? Made me feel like a lot of time had passed, and that sort of thing. Now I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember a) that the Spice Girls were really quite important for pop as a whole (and I even went to see the MOVIE! In Leicester Square and everything! With freakytigger and a million small children. Err, and some other shifty-looking student-seeming types I seem to recall) and b) that they came totally out of nowhere. Of course, this may not be true.

So my questions for you:

Did the Spice Girls suddenly appear from nowhere and turn pop inside out?
Could something comparable happen today?
Can you imagine what it might be or by definition would this be impossible and we just have to sit and wait?

Comments

[koganbot]

As for 2006 being niched and sludged and fragmented into ineffectiveness: no more or less than 1996, which had no clear direction that I could tell. Gangsta was still continuing to gangsta, grunge was grunging on, there were some glimmers from Timbo. Beck and DJ Shadow were considered the important artists, Sleater-Kinney and Fugees the hot new things. Stereolab. Smashing Pumpkins. Tricky. Wilco. Sublime. Oasis. Pulp. Sheryl Crow - she was really good then, and if I recall correctly, outselling the Spice Girls. Quad City DJs "C'Mon N' Ride It (the Train)" won the P&J singles poll, and their southern big bass electro-novelty was more a harbinger of what was to come musically than the Spice Girls were.

Btw, Spice Girls impact on what subsequent U.S. pop sounded like was negligible.

So what might be breaking big now, whether noticed or not? Well, I can't tell, but maybe hyphy and snap and bubblecrunk and whatever you'd name the category for "My Humps" could break out as the strange new half-minimalist novelty bubblegum, probably not "real" enough to go superbig, but bubblegumming under. Might depend on whether The Packs' "Vans" breaks out beyond California and Miami. And emo, goth, and teen confessional rockpop are all continuing to merge with who knows what effect. What if Meg & Diana blow up big? (I never much listened to Jewel or Vanessa Carlton, but think of Meg & Dia taking that stuff and deciding to rock loud with it.) Life continues to be surprising.