1997 Spice Girls: Spice Up Your Life

Lead off single from their forthcoming new album and film, 'Spice Up Your Life' also acts as a precursor to the short-lived yet highly visible pop fad for all things Latin that would invade the charts in the late(er) nineties. A generic dervish of flab free salsa, samba, tango & mambo rhythms, 'Spice Up Your Life' zips along at a fair crack, but its velocity is such that the girls' vocals struggle to cling on for the ride. The "Colours of the world" shout out is a clumsy brake from Scary Spice to try and stamp some order, but their identity as a whole gets washed into anonymity by the slipstream until only the shameless, self referencing of the title remains - this could be the work off N. E. Girl Band, which surely isn't what it says in the Spice Girls constitution. All of which goes to make 'Spice Up Your Life' a cardboard camera of a song; it provides workable, functional holiday snaps but, ultimately, it's quite disposable.