Spice Girls In Concert
In 1996, the British quintet known as the Spice Girls crash-landed into pop, with their wild outfits and fierce devotion to the concept of "girl power." Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm, and Geri Haliwell â aka Posh, Scary, Baby, Sporty, and Ginger Spice â were the top of the pops in the late 1990s and early â00s, with singles like the charging "Wannabe," the G-Funk-inspired "Say You'll Be There," and the globally minded "Spice Up Your Life" inspiring synchronized singing and dancing as they hit No. 1 on charts around the world. The five ladies' robust harmonies and winking attitude toward stardom not only made their first two albums, 1996's Spice and 1997's Spiceworld, global smashes, it turned their glitzy videos into MTV sensations. It also amped up the comedy quotient of their 1997 feature film Spice World, which co-starred Meat Loaf and Alan Cumming, and paid playful homage to The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.Â
Ginger exited the Spice Girls in 1998 but the band soldiered on, touring the world for the first time during 1998's Spiceworld Tour and releasing Forever, their final studio album, in 2000. In December of that year, the Spice Girls announced a hiatus, with the members focusing on their solo careers to great success both in the U.K. and abroad. The group's 2007 greatest-hits album led to the five members reuniting for the single "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)," a nostalgia-tinged callback to "Wannabe," before embarking on a follow-up reunion tour that concluded in early 2008. Four years later, they were the toast of the 2012 Summer Olympics, mashing up "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" for the closing ceremonies at London's Olympic Stadium.Â
In 2018, Scary, Baby, Sporty, and Ginger revealed that they'd be getting the band back together for the Spice World 2019 Tour, announcing a handful of dates across the British Isles. While Posh won't be available for the tour (now Victoria Beckham, she's fully booked with other commitments) the girl power quotient will still be off the charts with the remaining ladies, whose singular and collective personalities helped change pop for the spicier â and better.