Saturday, August 18, 2012

Spice Girls: Viva Forever!

I recently watched the closing ceremony of the Olympics in London (I missed the thing entirely!) and felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me when I saw the Spice Girls perform their most popular songs. 


I am a Spice Girls baby. I loved the Spice Girls the first time I saw the "Wannabe" music video and the rest was a history filled with their albums being played on loop in our car on the way to school every morning. I embraced the crazy outfits, the sky high platform shoes, Scary's tongue ring, Sporty's back handspring, the different personas, I loved it all. I sang their songs constantly (I only found out later on that "2 become 1" was a really sexy song! I sang that song without knowing what it was about!) and memorized the dance from their "Stop" video. Oh, and I remember watching the Spice World movie with my siblings when it came out.





Who didn't love these girls, honestly?












Back then, my favorite Spice Girl was Baby because she was cute and girly and the youngest. And for a little kid like me, she was probably the most accessible because of that. But now, years later, I find myself favoring the one I didn't care most about when I was a child: Posh. The reason why I favor her now might have something to do with the fact that he's married to David Beckham and that they have a successful marriage by Hollywood standards, but I also like her because she managed to make something of herself after her days of being a Spice Girl  wrapped up. She probably didn't want to rest on her laurels and live the rest of her days being known as a person that she was for only a small period of time, which is admirable, I think.

But I'm getting off tangent here. The Spice Girls! Watching them perform again after their break up  over a decade ago and a brief reunion in 2007 was something that made me feel like I was a little kid again. It even prompted me to look for their old albums so I can play them back whenever I wanted. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could still sing along to "Wannabe" and "Spice World" and was pleased that the girls looked better than ever. Is it weird that I'm happy for a group of strangers?

It's nice to know that even though the years have brought on so many changes since they hung up their clogs, their music still causes 20-something people like me to feel the giddy excitement we used to feel years ago. That goes for any musician who've made an impact in the music world, really.

Long live the Spice Girls! They will forever have a place in my beating 90's pop loving heart.

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