Spice Girls

In early 90s, the Herbert father-and-son management team decided to create a girl band that would become an alternative to boy groups, swarming the pop scene. Therefore, the Herberts enterprise Heart Management placed an advertisement in a magazine, looking for talents. They chose only five girls out of hundreds - Victoria Adams (who would become Missis Beckham later), Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Michelle Stephenson. The latter one soon fell out of the group's activity and was replaced by Abigail Kis and, finally, by Emma Bunton. Emma at once charmed everyone and perfectly fit the command. When this staff was confirmed, tension between Touch (the name, given to the band by the producer) members and their management reached the climax and resulted in the band's full and ultimate separation. They even stole their master recordings from the offices of the enterprise in order to be the only to control their creativity. The same day they found Eliot Kennedy, with whom they were acquainted during some receptions, and asked him to produce their command. The brave five chose the name Spice Girls, signed a contract to the label and soon recorded their first album Spice.

The debut work by Spice Girls saw an incredible success, becoming seven times platinum and creating a notion of Spicemania (analogous to Beatlemania). Both their winding dance pop tracks like Wannabe and romantic ballads like 2 Become 1 were warmly welcomed by the listeners. Preceded by the single Spice Your Life Up, their second disc Spiceworld saw the light in 1997. This edition also featured qualitative pop and emerged such singles as slow and emotional Viva Forever, Too Much and Stop - the only Spice Girls single that did not become number one in Britain. The same year the band debuted in filming, making their movie Spiceworld: The Movie. It featured many stars and was supposed to demonstrate the spirit of the band - light-hearted and humorous. In November 1997, Spice Girls fired their manager and started self-management. In 1998, they planned to issue a live record from their World Tour, but did not release it. On May 31 1998, Geri Halliwell announced her departure. It was a great shock to the fans, though the remaining four members assured everyone publicly that they were going to keep on. Anyway, Geri's departure made them seriously correct their plans - in particular, to postpone the release of the new album.

On Christmas 1998, Spice Girls released the single Goodbye. It was recorded before Geri's extraction, but listeners perceived it as a tribute to the former member. Goodbye climbed on the top of British chart and became Spice Girls' third consecutive Christmas number one song. In this respect, they can be equaled to the Beatles, who previously were the only band to reach such success in Britain. In 1999, Melanie C, Melanie B and Emma Bunton started solo careers without leaving the group. In November 2000, Spice Girls released their work Forever, which went R&B in respect of sounding. The disc didn't have much success, though singles Holler and Let Love Lead The Way saw a glimpse of fame. In 2001, the four band-mates announced the temporal disbanding of Spice Girls in order to concentrate on their solo careers. In 2007, it was announced that Spice Girls planned to re-unite in order to support the release of their Greatest Hits album. This return was a long-waited one, which can be proved by a simple fact - in London, tickets for the first date were sold in 38 seconds.