Rolling Stone Article (cont)
To so many people, the Spice Girls are nothing but bad. They are the new pop devil, threatening musical seriousness and polluting the pure well water of rock's higher meaning. It's easy enough to imagine ways in which the Spice Girls can seem annoying or irrelevant or lightweight. But the complainers usually ruin their argument by imagining that a group like Spice Girls is also some kind of calculated, dastardly creation to hoodwink the gullible. (Whereas, of course, one is supposed to imagine the Smashing Pumpkins, say, as an effortless riverboat of unsculpted, unpremeditated self-expression.) I understand why many people are horrified by the Spice Girls, but whenever I hear those arguments, I want to say: Listen to yourself. On which side is the innocence and enthusiasm, and on which side the self-protective cynicism?
I ask the Spice Girls if they think they'll ever get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
"I don't know," says Mel B. "I hope we do."
"We'll make a little bit of an impression," says Geri.
"They need to start ordering up the waxworks," says Victoria.
A thought strikes me: Do they know what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is?
"No."
"No."
"No."
"No."
"No."
I ask them: Who are the most important figures in pop history?
"Us lot,” says Victoria, without hesitation, and they giggle.
The Spice Girls’ marvelous, ludicrously heightened role in the national life of Britain reached a surreal pinnacle last December with The Political Interview. The Spectator, a small-circulation but influential, highbrow, habitually right-wing political magazine in Britain, decided that it would interview whoever happened to be the latest big young things in the pop world about politics. It'd be funny.
The Spice Girls were asked to participate, and they agreed. "We just thought it would be another angle," says Geri. "It'd be something fun to do."
They were interviewed for an hour backstage at an awards ceremony. It all went far better than the interviewer could have dreamed The Spice Girls are not short of opinions, and they are not shy about sharing them. The interviewer had assumed that the Spice Girls, like most young people in pop music, would have left-wing, Labour Party sympathies, but the two most vociferous talkers, Geri and Victoria, were aggressively conservative. Geri suggested that the previous Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher - still a hate figure for much of younger Britain - was the original Spice Girl: "The pioneer of our ideology - girl power."
The interviewer, Simon Sebag Montefiore, wrote up the encounter, cleverly, as both pisstake and clear reportage. Nicely deadpan. He took his fun from purposely over-interpreting their opinions: "The Spice Girls take a Burkean view of the growth of our landed aristocracy... The Spice philosophy combines Thatcherite economics, Buddhist tolerance and feudalistic neo-Plantagenet paternalism..." and so on.
When the article came out, the newspapers went crazy. The Spice Girls were on the front pages of all three tabloids, and there were articles for weeks in every newspaper, debating the significance of the Girls' positions. Though three of the Spice Girls had divergent views - Mel C supports Labour, Mel B describes herself as an anarchist and Emma declares herself uninterested in politics - the message that was picked up was that the Spice Girls were supporting the Conservative Party wholesale. The suggestion was that they represented a previously undetected youth Zeitgeist that saw through Labour leader Tony Blair's shallow populism and hankered nostalgically for firm-handed '80s Thatcherism. This - the national demographic that became known as the Spice Vote and that became as much an - issue in the British election as the "soccer moms” vote had been in America's - was seen as the wild card that might yet save Conservative prime minister John Major's skin.
"They were talking about us in the House of Commons," reflected Mel C in January. "It was ridiculous."
"What is the state of the government if... ?" Geri asked.
"... they're talking about us?" said Mel B.
"Exactly," Geri nodded. "If we can have an influence, that's terrible."
The Spice Girls sensibly stepped back, refusing to make any other public comments on politics, but as polling day approached, their names were invoked over and over. On the campaign trail, the nation's putative leaders faced Spice Girls quizes. Tony Blair, who had listed "Say You'll Be There" as one of his 10 favorite records of 1996, managed to name three Spice Girls (not Mel B or Emma). John Major subsequently managed to identify two.
On May 1, Britain elected Tony Blair the new prime minister by a landslide. After all that, none of the Spice Girls even voted.
In their dressing room backstage at The Rosie O'Donnell Show, the Spice Girls are briefed by one of the show's staff: "[Rosie]'s very spontaneous, but this is an outline. She might ask how you got the names, and I think you should give her an honorary name...." At the same taping: Courtney Thorne-Smith and a 7-year-old chef who is cooking fried cookie dough. When the staffer leaves, the Spice Girls are alone, except for their manager and me. They break into song, as they often do. "Warren G! Rap for me!" they croon. They met Warren G recently. "I thought he was totally sexy until I met him," sighs Mel B. "He was all flabby. He gave me his number, and I thought, 'I don't want that!' But I thought, 'I'd better take it, He might shoot me.'"
They all show me their new jewelry. After Spice went to No. 1, Virgin gave each of them a $500 Tiffany voucher. Mel C bought diamond-stud earrings: one for her right ear, one for her nose. Emma has a diamond eternity ring. Victoria has a bracelet. Then they argue about whether the little kid on Jerry Maguire is cute.
It is time for their vocal warm-up. Kenny, their vocal coach, plays the chords to "Say You'll Be There" on a keyboard, and they practice. For what it's worth, I hear each of the Spice Girls singing alone, and I hear them harmonizing together. They don't all have the strongest voices - the two Mels can let rip; the others are a little more fragile - but they can do it. When they appear with Rosie O'Donnell, they offer her a choice of being either Tough or Sassy Spice. "Can I be Tough-Sassy Spice?" she asks. Backstage, people crane their necks forward, fascinated by these hyperkinetic British girls they've heard so much about.
"Which one is the porno star?" someone asks.
A PERSONAL GLIMPSE #4. Mel B, the Spice Geri known as Scary, shows me her tongue stud. She has 11 of them, and she rotates them, except for the black rubber one, which collects lots of white mouth junk. When she takes a stud out, she says her tongue feels so light that she speaks with a lisp.
Mel B unscrews the stud by clamping it in her teeth, but she can't get it back in again without a mirror. I'll have to do it. She hands me the metal bolt and folds her tongue back on itself between her half-open teeth, so that the bottom of the tongue-piercing hole gapes between her teeth. I have to push the bolt gently through the hole. A little disgusting but kind of fun. It is alarming to think what millions of people around the world would give to get Mel B's saliva on their fingertips.
A week before this American visit, Spice Girls performed three songs live in Manchester for the Prince's Trust, Prince Charles' charity to provide opportunities for young people. Beforehand, they were introduced, and the British front pages had photos of them squeezing up to the heir to the British throne, a large lipstick kiss from Geri on his right cheek.
"I didn't flirt," says Mel B.
"I didn't either," says Emma.
"Geri did," says Victoria.
Geri pinched Prince Charles' royal bottom. "I pinch everyone's bottom," she says. "Why am I going to stop at the Prince?"
So, I inquire, would you pinch the pope's behind?
"Yeah," she says. "No. It depends."
They say that everyone else was being careful around Prince Charles.
"People were trying to censor jokes," says Geri. "He's just a man, just like anybody else, who wants a laugh...."
"And wants his bum pinched," says Mel B.
When Emma asked after the 14-year-old Prince William, his older son (who, as revealed in a tabloid article titled WHAT WILLS ROYALLY ROYALLY WANTS!, is supposed to have ripped down his Pamela Anderson Lee poster at boarding school and replaced it with one of Emma), his father apparently replied, "Don't be a cradle snatcher."
"He said, 'Are you going back to London after the show?' " says Victoria, "and I said, 'Yes. Why? Do you require a lift?' "
"He was really polite," says Mel C.
"Grabbing his bottom, I was being a cheeky little girl," says Geri. "I was thinking, 'God, that's the prince.' "
How was it?
"It wasn't bad," she says. "How old is he? Fifty-odd? It was like a waterbed. Something to grab hold of. He tensed it quickly"
"Prince Charles was holding in a fart when he saw us," asserts Mel C.
“I'll tell you what was funny," says Geri. "Melanie was sticking her tongue out and talking about getting her tongue pierced, and I said to him, 'Why don't you get a Prince Albert?' " A Prince Albert - named, perhaps apocryphally, after Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Charles' great-great-great-grandfather - is a ring through the head of the penis. This is not the kind of thing you discuss with royalty. "He said, 'What's a Prince Albert?' " says Geri. "I told him. And [British comedian] Stephen Fry said... " [Geri acts out his pointed Finger and his downward gaze] " '. .. it's down there.' "
The Spice Girls talk about the reasons it has worked.
"We always go on the concept of: We're just normal people, and that's what normal people enjoy," says Emma.
"We are rough ‘round the edges, and we are real people,” says Victoria. "We're not all 6-foot-tall skinny models. We eat and do normal things."
"We don't have any airs and graces," says Mel B.
"It's already self-indulgent," Mel B butts in.
That's how their album sounds, and that is why it works. This year, there already have been two No. 1 singles - Spice Girls' "Wannabe" and Hanson's "MMMBop" - that get all their vim, drive and sparkle from the artists' evident joy in their creation. Both of the songs are almost meaningless and at times barely more than onomatopoeic celebrations of self - the very quality that makes them so annoying (if you hate them) and so invigorating and inspiring (if you love them).
All of the songs on Spice are credited as collaborations between the Spice Girls and other songwriters. None of the Spice Girls plays any instruments on the album. (In fact, Mel B plays drums, Geri plays a little guitar, and Mel C and Victoria play some keyboard, but these are not skills they have yet used in the group.) They sit together in the studio and suggest the kinds of sounds they want or work from a loop that their producers set up.
"It's just really natural," says Mel C. "We've just got every element we need. I'm better at melodies, but I'm terrible with lyrics. Geri's brilliant with lyrics. Emma's great with harmonies. Mel [B] always comes up with hooks. And Victoria's great with melody as well. We never get stuck."
"You do have days when you're not in the mood," says Emma.
"When we can't rhyme anything," says Mel B. "You know: rat, cat, mat."
The Spice Girls say they wrote more than 30 songs for the first album, and six are prepared for the second. They even wrote one, "Likely Stories" - a song they sing to me that includes the line "See You Next Tuesday" (You know, C U Next Tuesday: C.U.N.T.," explains Mel B helpfully)- that they hoped to give to Jarvis Cocker, the singer from Pulp. Sadly, the likelihood of this musical cross-pollination bearing fruit may have been reduced by a speech Cocker gave at a British awards ceremony in January. "I don't know why everyone is clapping the Spice Girls," he announced. "They said Margaret Thatcher was the sixth Spice Girl... so, fuck Margaret Thatcher, and fuck the Spice Girls."
“Anyone fore Coke?” Emma asks.
"Pepsi!" they all shout.
"Pepsi," says Emma, chastened.
This is the one part of my interview that they try to censor. "Please don't write that," Victoria beseeches. She grabs my tape recorder and tries to rewind it. They have a big Pepsi sponsorship deal, and they have messed up before.
"Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi, Pepsi," says Emma, as though she can redress the balance through product-loyal repetition. The first full Spice Girls concert will be a Pepsi event: There is a competition to fly people around the world to Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 12.
American Pepsi has still not confirmed whether they will join the deal.
I'd like to meet President Clinton," Geri announces.
I ask them whether Hillary has girl power.
"Who's Hillary?" asks Mel B.
"Oh, who gives a fuck?" says Mel C. "I mean, about the Clintons. Who gives a fuck?"
"Who gives a fuck?" echoes Victoria. "But has he got any sons?"
Mel B shoots bubbles from a gun. "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not, HE LOVES ME!" she screams.
"You know what's the greatest pleasure?" asks Geri. "When you're dying to go for a pee, when you get there and have that pee."
"What's even better ..." begins Mel C.
"Is when you have a pooh?" suggests Mel B.
"No, when it's freezing cold and your wee's dead warm," says Mel C.
"I don't talk about things like that," says Victoria, with deliberate prissiness.
They begin to throw bread rolls around the room and into the walls.
Mel B has an idea. "Who can do this?" she asks, grabbing the tablecloth.
"I don't think you should do that," warns Victoria.
Geri grabs a piece of tablecloth, too.
"Yeah, go on," says Emma.
There's no way they'll actually pull. It's a large, round table overloaded with food and smart hotel porcelain and glasses and bottles and lugs....
"A-one! A-two!"
They do it. Glass and china smash everywhere. The door crashes open. It's their security guard, who clearly imagines that the Spice Girls are under terrorist attack. The Spice Girls, mean while, can't stop laughing. It's too dangerous near the table - all shards of glasses and jagged-edged crockery fragments. So we go and sit in the corner on the floor, like six punished children.
"Haven't you always wanted to do that?" Mel B asks.
I didn't think you'd actually do it, I tell her.
Mel B looks at me, disappointment in her eyes. Maybe, her gaze suggests, she has got me wrong. Maybe I haven't understood that much about the Spice Girls after all. “How,” she says, "could you have not thought we were going to do it?"
Email: poshginger_10@hotmail.com
