25 years of Spice Girls #Pinkinourlives #Spiceworld

The Spice Girls at 25: Here’s the story from A to Z

Released 25 years ago, on 8 July 1996, Wannabe spent seven weeks at number one in the UK and four in the US. In the process, it made five unknown girls – Victoria Caroline Adams, Melanie Janine Brown, Emma Lee Bunton, Melanie Jayne Chisholm and Geraldine Estelle Halliwell – global superstars.

So here’s a story from A to Z of how the band started, rose to fame, fell apart and put themselves back together again. Because which member of our LGBT+ Community does not love the Spice Girls?!?

N is for Nicknames

Famously, the band’s nicknames – Scary, Sporty, Baby, Posh and Ginger – were bestowed by Top of the Pops magazine.

“The names jumped out at us,” editor Peter Lorraine later recalled. “Posh was the first one to be thought up because Victoria looks pretty sophisticated. The rest were pretty easy really because the girls’ characters were already really strong.

“We laughed the most when we came up with Scary. Jennifer Cawthron, who was also from Leeds, came up with that one because Mel B was so loud and had tried to take over our whole photo shoot.”

By 1997, the band were already coming up with replacements. Mel B thought she should be Abrupt Spice, Emma wanted to be Gets-Away-With-Murder Spice and Victoria suggested Posh-half-the-time Spice.

In private, though, Geri called Mel B The Ox “because I could operate perfectly on the most outrageous hangover – or even do a full performance faultlessly after several bottles of champagne – while she would be throwing up in the loo.”