YOU THINK WE’VE gone mad. Why are we running four huge pictures of the same people in pretty much the same pose? We may have gone mad, but this isn’t the evidence for it. One of the feisty, nubile groups on these pages is the Spice Girls, the biggest pop sensation to come out of Britain since the Beatles. The other feisty, nubile groups are the Spicy Girls, the Spiced Girls and Nice ’n’ Spicey. What is this, a Spice franchise, the McGirls? Well, as we analysts of mass culture say, it’s an explosion of simulacra triggered by a simulacrum. In other words, a bunch of wanna-bes who wanna be like the original wanna-be. Of course, ““Wannabe’’ is the title of the Spice Girls’ hit single that has detonated their amazing rise to the top of the charts, in 33 countries no less. And out of the laboratories of those feverish Frankensteins, the music moguls, has emerged a cacophony of clones, which also include the Spice-ish Girls, All Spice and the disarmingly named Wannabe Spice Girls. And now comes the inevitable, the Spice Boys.
Actually, these male siblings of the Spice family are called Five. They’ve been created by the same father-and-son team, Bob and Chris Herbert, that launched the Spice Girls phenomenon in 1994, with an ad asking for ““streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated’’ girls to form a group. After months of hard training, the girls, none of whom was a professional musician, left the Herberts for new management. Signed by Virgin Records, they became the first girl band to have a No. 1 hit with their debut single, which has now sold 5 million copies, 1 million in the United States. Since then they’ve sold 14 million copies worldwide of their first album, ““Spice.’’ Pepsi has signed them to a seven-figure deal, and they are about to make a major movie about five days in their lives. Already each of the girls, Geri Halliwell, 24, Victoria Addams, 22, Emma Bunton, 21, Melanie Brown (Mel B), 22, and Melanie Chisholm (Mel C), 23, is worth millions. That’s a lot of money the Herberts didn’t make, and they’re determined to recoup with Five.
The boys, Richard, Scott, Sean, Abs and J., aged 15 to 21, were picked from 5,000 at auditions. The Herberts are no doubt leery of the Spice Girls’ slogan, Girl Power, since they were the first to feel it. Can Five generate a more controllable Boy Power? RCA executive Simon Cowell says: ““I think Five is going to be as big as New Kids on the Block in the 1980s.’’ Cowell says RCA’s division in Germany has previewed Five’s forthcoming single, ““Slam Dunk.’’ ““They’ve guaranteed it’s going to be a No. 1 hit in Germany,’’ he says. Well, maybe - if the Germans retitle the song ““Slam Danke.''
Music execs have long assumed that young girls, the biggest record buyers, swoon over boys. But kids, both male and female, have been ignited by the Spice Girls’ sexy chutzpah, their cheeky deflating of presumptive (male) authority (in ““Say You’ll Be There’’ they demand romantic equality or ““I guess I’ll have to show you the door’’). This breezy but firm assertiveness seems to chime with the mood in a Britain that has just shown the torpid Tories the door. Ironically, Geri idolizes Margaret Thatcher, whom she calls ““the first Spice Girl.’’ The Spice Girls project self-confidence and fun, cutting through the funless fog of John Major’s Britain. At a recent concert for the Prince of Wales’s Trust, Geri, the brashest of the group, pinched the princely posterior. In the semirap rhythms of their anthem, ““Wannabe,’’ the girls sing: ““I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want,/… I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really/Really really wanna zigazig ha.''
Zigazig ha - it’s an offer you can’t refuse, guys. The clone groups reproduce the looks and personalities of the originals down to hair color, high-trash clothes, tattoos and attitude. They appear everywhere: garlic festivals, telemarketing sales floors, corporate launches, nightclubs, colleges and countries like Spain, Portugal and Norway. These are profitable gigs for the ““tribute groups’’ (they have no record deals). And they have to sing for only 20 minutes, the time it takes to perform the Spice Girls’ five hit songs. Last February, Nice ’n’ Spicey crashed the BRIT Awards, fooling even Emma Bunton’s mother, who called ““Emma!’’ as the clones swept past, escorted to the Spice Girls’ dressing room before someone got wise.
As the new age begins with the cloning of sheep, the real sheep are the suits who man the Xerox machines of pop culture. Record moguls are hot for Girl Power. Polydor is readying a five-girl band called Chill. And Warner’s WEA Records has signed a black three-girl group called Cleopatra. London Records has All Saints, a four-girl entry, and Virgin looks set to sign Six Pack. Ireland has its first all-girl band, Fab, and Sony Music is launching a four-girl group. Sony exec Miller Williams, who’s keeping even the group’s name a secret (let’s hope it’s not the Nutmegs), asserts that they’re different from the Spice Girls. ““They’re more musical, they play instruments,’’ he points out. The real Spice Girls don’t play, instead using backup musicians. Still, Williams says he’s ““indebted to the Spice Girls for showing record companies there’s a market for girl bands. All I can say is, “Good for you, girls. And I wish I had your money’.''
Not everyone loves the Spice Girls. Their eclectic mix of R&B, hip-hop, soul, dance and ballads arouses scorn and even fury in those who see them as musical androids, completely manufactured. Critics have called them ““a singing magazine spread’’ and ““a live-action Victoria’s Secret catalog.’’ Suspicions have been voiced that, like the notorious Milli Vanilli, they don’t do their own singing on their records, though the group indignantly denies it. In their recent American TV appearances with David Letterman and Rosie O’Donnell, their sound was, as the British say, pretty dire, and their dancing looked like kids cavorting at a slumber party.
The girls have yet to give a real live concert: the first one is scheduled for Istanbul in October. (Far enough to keep the vultures at bay.) But the more you listen to them, the more their semi-amateurism takes on a kind of endearing sincerity. On the press-release video of ““Wannabe,’’ after the necessary lip-syncing is done during the action, the girls sit on the floor and start to harmonize. They sound sweet and natural, like bright high-school kids. Hey, they can sing. And can they ever zigazig ha.
To identify the cheeky stars, and the merely cheeky, turn the page.
1 The Spice Girls
2 Spicy Girls
3 Nice ’n’ Spicey
4 Spiced Girls
