The aesthete in me would have enjoyed it better if this present number one had been the one to knock the final Take That single off the top in a neat handing of the baton from one nineties phenomena to another. Sadly, it came a few weeks too late for that, but in the circumstances I'll take deposing Mr Barlow at a pinch to make good my symbolism - the pop king was dead, long live the pop queens. But from another personal point of view, that baton that being passed was not one of equal size or weight; I've mentioned previously as to how Take That barely registered inside my worldview during their heyday, but that's not something I can say about the Spice Girls. No, those Spice Girls and their 'girlpower' mantra made Take That look like The Wedding Present in terms of pure media exposure. The statistics alone show that Take That built up their following over a (albeit short) period of time while those darned spice's descended from a clear blue sky with the ferocity of a plague of locusts, laying waste to all before them from the off. Before the year was out there'd be two more number ones and a movie, as well as a marketing blitz that saw their faces staring out of any campaigns or promotions that had sufficient finances to hire their approval; Cadbury's, Pepsi, Polaroid, ASDA, Aprilla Scooters, Walkers Crisps, pencil cases, dolls, cosmetics, shoes, watches - the list was as endless as it was random, and presumably the only reason there wasn't a Spice Girls coffin was because the Funeral Furnishing Manufacturer's Association didn't pitch up with enough readies to persuade Scary Spice to model it.
But of course, this was all just fine and dandy; it wasn't the rampant commercial and sexual exploitation of five young women, - nothing so crass. This was empowerment, 'girl power' no less, though whether Emily Davison threw herself in front of King George's horse at Epsom in protest at her gender’s right to appear on a coffee mug in sports bra and pants is debateable. I’m not going to delve into the murky world of sexual politics here so suffice it so say that this is the ideology that was sold, sold hard and gobbled up by a young female fanbase who, if they weren't au fait with the collected works of Andrea Dworkin, were hip enough to know those Ginger, Posh, Scary, Sporty and Baby images were cool.
It's a theme too that debut single 'Wannabe' riffs on. Kind of; love a Spice Girl, then love her girly mates too or you're out the door is what it's saying. Fair enough I guess, but what amazed (and still amazes) me about 'Wannabe' is just what a shambolic affair it is. Frankly, it's a mess; the call and response on the opening "Yo, I'll tell ya what I want, what I really really want. So tell me what ya what, what ya really really want" has an Amazonian intent, but then it collapses in on itself to leave a sugary black hole on "If you want my future, forget my past" before beginning again/collapsing again until it slips into a rap that smacks of naked, East Cheam opportunism instead of East Side cred.
Though no diva's, the girls sing with the exuberance of a pre-nightclub hen party, but 'Wannabe' lurches too much to let them settle on a consistent thread they can follow to allow the personal stamp of what is set up as being five distinct characters to come through (other than playing up to their own nicknames in the video). By the time the "Slam your body down and wind it all around" coda appears, both artist and listener have been buffeted by too many rollers and reduced to seasick passengers who can't wait to reach shore.
As a point of reference, I've commented on how I regarded 'Firestarter' to be a genetic blend of genres, and in its own way 'Wannabe' races for the same prize only its joins aren't so seamless; the rap/dance/pop elements grind against each other with the friction of tectonic plates in motion and the result could be a Frankenstein made composite of the girl's original audition tapes ("let's see if you can rap Mel, Emma - do girly pop") stitched together by drunken medical students engaging in high jinks on rag night.
And the analogy holds good in that ‘Wannabe’ did create a monster, but here's no doubt that it’s a strange choice to launch a career with - things would get a hell of a lot slicker from here on in, but they'd also get a hell of a lot blander too. And while each of 'Wannabe' constitute parts would themselves be bland as beige if they were stretched out to song length, when shoved up against each other so haphazardly in the style of a blind man gluing together a broken a teapot, the end result has a certain charm of novelty that, what it loses in functionality, it makes up for in curiosity value.
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