Tell us what you want, what you really really want?
Do you want to know about the now far distant days of the 1990s, when five young women appeared apparently out of nowhere to charge to the top of the charts and lodge in public affections forever?
Well, you’re in the right place.
Here’s the image that speaks several hundred words about 90s pop culture.
Five young women who changed the world. Click on the image to discover more and to own it yourself.
1 - Nothing is new
A number of themes that emerge here will be familiar to students of pop culture and assembled pop groups that go back decades - and probably beyond in different contexts.
You’ll spot ideas here that are familiar to you if you’re a fan of The Monkees or current K-pop giants Blackpink.
The Monkees were assembled, with a cast designed to fit various personas.
2 - Girls together, separately
Autograph collectors often like matching ink in signatures.
Band photos with a full set of contemporaneous signatures are prized.
Here, the Spices have signed in different coloured inks.
And it’s obviously deliberate, and reinforces the very strong sense of a band of individual personalities.
Baby pink for Baby Spice, Emma Bunton.
A confrontational, vibrant orange for Scarey Spice, Mel B.
Regal purple for Victoria Adams in her Posh Spice persona.
Liverpool FC red for Scouser Melanie C, Sporty Spice.
And an eccentric green ink for Ginger Spice, personified by Geri Halliwell, very much an individual.
The nicknames were given to the band by a journalist writing a piece on them, they weren’t an initial part of the creation.
The Spice Girls were given their nicknames by a journalist. Apparently, Melanie B was "shouty".
3 - Personas and identities
No matching outfits for this girl group.
From the off, the Spice Girls stand-out was that they were an assembly of strong, individual personalities.
This was by design. And it was designed to increase their audience appeal by giving every type of teenager someone to latch on to.
But some contemporary - and subsequent - observers were happy to find a somewhat feminist message in the fact the band members weren’t subsumed into a unified, man-friendly whole.
4 - This is business
This picture is badged by Virgin Records.
They signed the band in July 1995.
For five albums.
The music industry of the 1990s isn’t the one we have today.
It was rolling in money!
There was no streaming and copyright on CDs was pretty safe and secure.
The Spice Girls were given a five album deal.
By the end of 1996 they had a fan mania to rival The Beatles, with half-a-million gathering to watch them turn on Oxford Street's Christmas lights and huge sponsorship deals with global brands.
5 - Looking good
While they’re clearly differentiated individuals in this image, you can see that the Spice Girls have been styled extensively.
The band’s members took on these looks and stuck with variations of them throughout their career.
The nicknamed personas were a defense mechanism the Spices came to embrace, as Melanie Chisolm says: "[it was] like a protection mechanism because it was like putting on this armour of being this, this character, rather than it actually being you."
6 - Accidents of timing
Look up a timeline for 1996 in the UK and you’ll find plenty of upsetting news events, just as you will today.
But the mood was upbeat and the expectation was that change was coming.
Cool Britannia they called it.
And its first stirrings were in the more male and traditionally rocky world of Britpop.
The Spice Girls were a fun, young phenomenon who added some, well, spice to the mix.
A Conservative Government that had been in power since 1979 was coming to its tired and rather messy end, and Tony Blair (whatever you think of him now) looked like a young prince in waiting.
The Spice Girls fitted in perfectly with the mood of optimism that would burst out in 1997.
The spark of the band project had been ignited in 1994, but their explosion in 1996 - 7 (like all pop eruptions) owes at least something to the world in which they found their place.
Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill. Is the feminism of Riot Grrl bands like this more authentic or radical than the Spice Girls' "Girl power"?
7 - You’ve got to get with my friends
Is this feminism?
Girl Power was the Spice Girl’s tag line.
I’m not a cultural theory academic - and I’m a man! - my personal input on this debate is of limited use.
But it’s a debate that is still going on.
Wannabe, that first single, was powerfully straight talking: “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want.”
And, whether it had the depth an academic might look for or was really radical, it seems pretty clear that a lot of girls and young women took an empowering message from the Spice Girls.
8 - Timeless
This picture looks very modern.
And, it’s not just the fact that the cycles of fashion are ticking around to a 90s revival.
The Spice Girls remain current.
It’s easy to be dismissive of pop music.
But the Spice Girls are a cultural phenomenon in just the same way - and probably of a similar magnitude - as The Beatles are.
They were on stamps last year.
They’ll probably work together again.
Each member continues to inspire a considerable fanbase and supply a still-hungry media with story after story.
I mean, Victoria Beckham is an industry in her own right.
9 - Make this picture yours
All of that in one picture.
And it could be hanging in your home sooner than you think.
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