Once upon a time, the Spice Girls' London office was the Indica Gallery, where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono. The women who shifted 30 million in 'Spice' and 'Spiceworld' CDs toiled for a year before realizing that feminism had once before hooked up with mass culture in the same spot. The blinds are drawn to deter gawkers. On the wall hang glossy photos of all the Girls, even Ginger (Geri Halliwell), who quit in 1998 - but someone has turned her picture upside-down. Wearing a baseball cap and wire rims, Sporty (Melanie Chisholm) is frank about her animosity toward Ginger. "We met up, and she was great, then the next time, she was really weird. I thought, 'F*ck this, I can't be a*sed.'"
When Ginger snapped, she did the Spice Girls a favor. On their new album, 'Forever', the other four get their tunes beefed up by soul corporations Jam & Lewis and Rodney Jerkins, who, after phattening No. 1's for Jennifer Lopez and Destiny's Child, is set to scrape the patina off the King of Pop's crown. You'd have to be William Shatner to make a lousy pop album with producers that hype. And the ladies (and their studio musicians) have brought the funk. 'If You Wanna Have Some Fun' features alapback bass evoking Will Smith's Patrice Rushen redux 'Men In Black'.
"Without what's-her-name, they've reinvented themselves," Jerkins said, adding that hardwork has given the Girls a new edge. "They were used to singing their tracks in two hours and leaving, but I made them spend two days on the vocals. Trust me, they're not doing music for four-your-olds anymore,". Indeed, "maturity" has become the Spice buzzword, from their new PVC bras to the lyrical come-ons: "Let me take you to my fantasy room," they plead on the flirtacious single 'Holler'. But, will their usual preteen audience follow them out of the playroom? "Who knows; maybe people don't want the Spice Girls anymore," says Sporty rather nonchalantly.
Spiceworld is not the epicenter of insanity it was in 1997, when Nelson Mandela wanted his son to marry Scary and Charles Manson promised to kill himself by lethal injection if the entire group would not visit him in prison. But even after three essentially dormant years, the girls still make headlines - like when Posh (Victoria Beckham aka Victoria Adams) was accused of faking a story about her infant son's attempted kidnapping. Either the 'Real World' intrigue of their saga is still incredibly compelling, or our lives are awfully dull. But if 'Forever' can't stay on the charts even as long as Puff Daddy's indentically titled bomb, Spice gossip will still abound. All four have solo albums - like Kiss in 1978!
The Girls, still claiming to be in their mid-20s, have entered the adult realm of marriage, divorce, and childbirth. Scary (Melanie Brown) says her split with Spice-boy dancer Jimmy Gulzar, father to Phoenix, has made 'Hot', her solo album (featuring Sisqo and Missy Elliot), more "personal" and "angry". One kiss-off centers around the lyric "Pack your shit, and get the hell out!" How do you get a Spice Girl that mad? Scary says he refused to have sex with her. Posh married and had a son with pretty-boy soccer star David Beckham, who ADMITS he wears her undearwear. They've filled the void Dianna and Dodi left in the British tabloids. "We get death threats, kidnapping threats," she says. "The press critisizes my weight. It's just the English way." Posh's ambitions for 'Forever' are modest: "It's more R&B. Hopefully we'll attract an older fanbase."
If Posh is coldy courteous, Baby makes up for it with mush. According to Sporty, Baby (Emma Bunton) "collects hugs". Unlike Posh, she shies away from rock-star perks. "The others will phone up Gucci or Versace and say,'I want some clothes,'" she says. "I'm embarrassed. I go buy them." Sporty's still sporty, but she's hopes the lesbian rumours will die down now that she has new beau, rising pop star Dan Williams. "I'm the straightest person I know," she asserts. "So I had short hair and tatoos, and didn't have a boyfriend. It was rude of the press to say, 'That's what a lesbian is like.'"
Now that young acts citing the Spice Girls as an influence are telling us what a girl wants, can the originals still have an impact? "They blazed the trail as far as becoming multimedia stars," says MTV programming chief Tom Calderone. "People are curious to see their new look, and they sound Destiny's Child, believe it or not." The maddest years over, the Girls can take fame for granted and focus on what they really want to do: entertain. "My mom caught me lip-synching in front of the mirror," says Sporty. "Mum said, 'You do this for a living, what do you need to do that for?' I told her, 'I take lip-synching very seriously!'".