"Girl (and Annoyance) Power!": The Spice Girls' Greatest Hits
Written: Sep 12 '08 (Updated Sep 12 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: The ballads are pretty good, and "Stop" is a great pop tune.
Cons: Most of these songs are just irritating.
The Bottom Line: Perhaps the near-inarguable uselessness of contemporary pop music is making me nostalgic, but the Spice Girls' singles collection isn't too bad. Just make sure to avoid "Wannabe".
floatingcity's Full Review: Greatest Hits by Spice Girls
Seeing that teen-band reunions have come into vogue in the past couple of years, it was only a matter of time before the long-dormant Spice Girls re-emerged to grab some cold hard cash… um, I mean, ‘to express their love for their craft once more’ (well, not really – but I guess it’s understandable. You don’t want poor ol’ Posh to endure the unspeakable humiliation of being photographed with the same $30,000 bag twice, do you?) Accordingly, the band’s recent reunion took the fairly predictable route of a money-spinning tour and greatest hits album, providing the chance to reassess the music a decade divorced from the hype, the backlash and the numerous fashion faux pas.
As one of the primary bands responsible for the teenybop nightmare that constituted the last third of the Nineties, a number of the Girls’ songs can’t help but invoke unpleasant feelings, utilising the ‘attitude over ability’ female pop template established by Madonna, but without Ms Ciccone’s former knack for solid melodies. With the minor exception of Sporty Spice Mel C, none of them are particularly proficient singers, and their “girl power!” posturing gets old quickly when slathered over plastic, cheesy Euro-house beats. The most glaring example is the debut single “Wannabe”, which may have been a massive hit, but hasn’t aged well at all, relying on a grating keyboard riff and the supremely annoying “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want” section to be catchy. Granted, it is memorable, but only because it’s so repetitive and irritating. The weak samba tune “Spice Up Your Life” is just as bad, jammed full of cacophonous noise (including an atonal whistle that relentlessly toots in the bottom of the mix) and dumb playground chanting that could have been written by anyone, anywhere, and under any circumstance.
Interestingly, the girls do a bit better when they (or their producers) choose to focus on developing a couple of vocal hooks. “Say You’ll Be There” may be crammed full of snide G-funk emulating synthesisers and fake bass, but there’s actually a sense of direction from verse to pre-chorus and then refrain, and it’s agreeably catchy (the cute harmonica solo doesn’t hurt, either). Disco take-off “Who Do You Think You Are?” is also fun, being typically brainless but possessing a reasonable dance groove to tap your foot to. Best of all is the Motown influence of “Stop”, which I genuinely think is great, combining a stomping beat with fresh, non-synthesised horns and an excellent chorus. The sung harmonies are also at their best here, showing evidence of thought as to the vocal arrangement and successfully achieving the Sixties girl group sound the band was striving for.
Given the obvious vocal limitations that abound, it’s amusing that the most consistent songs are the ballads. Without the opportunity for gratuitous production effects to get in the way, the band concentrates on creating melody and atmosphere, carrying off the make-up-sex song "2 Become 1" with aplomb, sap-free orchestration and soothing use of Mel B’s hushed overtone. They even manage to work in a contraception reference without sounding clumsy (funny to think that subtly referring to condom use once made them the target for ire – especially now that Soulja Boy’s ensured that you can’t turn the radio on without hearing about some poor ‘ho’ getting ‘superman’-ed). The other slow numbers are all pretty solid, from the swaying jazzy vibe of “Too Much” to the shimmering melancholy of the holiday-love reminiscence “Viva Forever” (which is sadly edited from the excellent album version, but remains the band’s most ‘artistic’ song).
Unfortunately, the remaining pieces have very little to offer, either being inferior recreations of prior material (“Move Over”, which is almost as aggravating as “Spice Up Your Life”) or failed attempts at being ‘modern’; the ice-cold, overly pristine American R&B-isms of “Holler” and “Let Love Lead The Way” fitting the rest of the songs about as well as Ann Coulter at a ‘Miss Teen America’ pageant. The token new tracks “Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)” and “Voodoo” are bland, computerised non-entities, while the UK edition’s bonus dance remixes of “Wannabe” and “Say You’ll Be There” fall into the all-too-frequent trap of substituting an up-to-date beat and long running time for actual creativity.
Anyway, I guess that anyone’s reaction to this collection is going to be strongly modified by what they felt about the Spice Girls in their heyday – if you hated them, this won’t convince you otherwise, and if you liked them, there’s an opportunity for some nostalgia and a few guilty-pleasure, “what was I thinking back then” moments. As for me, this record is way too patchy (and occasionally infuriating) to give a high rating to, but “Stop” and the ballads are enough to bag it a respectable 2 stars.
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