Reunion Tour For Spice Girls In The Works, All In But ‘Posh Spice’
A reunion tour for the British sensations, the Spice Girls, is a go as per consensus from four of the five members. Melanie Brown or “Scary Spice,” Melaine Chisholm or “Sporty Spice,” Emma Bunton or “Baby Spice,” and Geri Halliwell or “Ginger Spice,” have reportedly given the project the nod. Only Victoria Adams or “Posh Spice,” now Victoria Beckham, is aloof to the idea.
According to Us Weekly quoting an inside source, the idea has been worked on for the past year, and the legendary harbingers of “girl power” have “long been keen to do a major reunion tour together”. Talk of the band coming together intensified on Monday, March 21, 2016, when Bunton, 40, made a public comment about how the girls adore each other and she would “love to do something.” Her words linked back to what Brown, 40, said on a U.K. television special in December 2015.
“It’s our twentieth anniversary this year, and it would be rude not to celebrate. So hopefully something will be happening pretty soon.”
It was in November 1996 that the Spice Girls released their debut album Spice in Europe with an unprecedented success that rivaled Beatlemania. The 1.8 million copies of Spice selling out in Britain within a seven-week span made the Spice Girls the quickest-rising British act since the Beatles. By the time they were done, the singing sensations had the biggest-selling album in the U.K. by a female band, having sold over three million copies in Britain, and hitting number one on the charts for fifteen non-consecutive weeks. A flashback to these numbers twenty years later would further validate the reunion tour.
As for Posh Spice holding out, the rest of the group are determined to move ahead without her. The wife of ex-soccer star player David Beckham reportedly will not sing or dance with the group, but there is a small chance she would make a guest appearance during their reunion tour.
It was the girls’ debut single “Wannabe” in July 1996 that launched them into stardom. “Wannabe” sat at the top of the U.K. Singles Chart for seven weeks and received a double Platinum certification by the British Phonographic Industry. Its January 1997 release in the United States got it top position on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, where it earned the distinction of being the group’s only number-one single Stateside.
“Wannabe” topped the charts in 22 nations by the end of 1996, and 37 nations by March 1997. “Wannabe” became the best-selling single by a female group in the world, with over seven million copies sold worldwide by the end of 1997. “Wannabe,” which will be a signature song for the Spice Girls’ reunion tour, was rated in 2014 as the most easily recognizable pop song of the last 60 years.
The popularity of “Wannabe” influenced the Spice Girls’ appearance in Top of the Pops magazine, where each member was given a nickname based upon her representation. Adams was “Posh Spice,” Bunton “Baby Spice,” Brown “Scary Spice,” Halliwell “Ginger Spice,” and Chisholm “Sporty Spice.” While fans hope for a complete set of spices at the reunion tour, four out of five is the current number, reminiscent of 1998 when Halliwell took off, short-changing fans by one girl.
Fans can take comfort in the fact that Halliwell, 43, the first missing Spice Girl, has returned to play “Ginger Spice,” bringing to mind her Union Jack dress that achieved iconic status, becoming symbolic of 1990s pop culture. Sold at a charity auction to the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas for about $59,500, the dress put Ginger Spice into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most expensive piece of pop star clothing ever sold.
For authenticity, the upcoming reunion tour could feature a Ginger Spice wearing a replica of the original Union Jack dress.
[Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images]
