I'll admit to multiple live concert trips to see The Spice Girls (both pre- and post- Geri), including that immensely awesome coach trip to Sheffield when me and my mate Gee were the only people on the coach over the age of eleven not there because they were taking their kids to the concert. Indeed the bus driver picked on me as the conscience of the bus to do the head count.
Of course I probably would have gone to see them this time around if it wasn't SEVENTY-FIVE fucking pounds for a ticket. As it happens I won't even be spending the tenner on the CD.
But that doesn't stop me taking a look back at some pop history does it?
Like most throwaway pop (for want of a better term) things are never likely to seem as good as they were 10 years later (though I'd wager I'll still be sat here in 2017 telling you how great Girls Aloud were) but there are a number of songs that still hold up relatively well, most of them from their second album Spiceworld.
Spice Up Your Life might still be their finest moment, Viva Forever and Too Much remain their finest ballads (with one possible exception, which we'll come to in a moment) and Stop is the epitome of a pop party track that appeals to one and all, young and old.
Songs from the debut fare less well. Wannabe, as crucial as it was to the rise of the Spice Girls at the time, hasn't aged well and Mama sounds even more cringeworthy in 2007 than it did at the time. Everything from this period beats virtually all of the dog that was Forever. That was the classic moment when a fantastic pop act gets idea's above their station and don't want to be pop anymore.
The only saving grace from the dreadful final days was Goodbye, quite possibly my favourite Spice Girls ballad if only for the fact that I once used it to make my, soon to be ex, flatmate cry at University when it was on in a club saying that once we left uni, that would be it. For those keeping score I think I've seen her about three times since then (in seven years).
But anyway, whilst perhaps damaging the memory of The Spice Girls in some ways (and seriously, what's with putting that bloody Pepsi advert song on here) when they were being a pop act, they were pretty damn fine. Some people may suggest it was only ever about the hype, but this proves that for at least the first two thirds of their original career they usually had the tunes as well.
I just hope they've no inclination to get "naked" during their tour this time around.
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