Spice Girls — Wannabe
"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends" — the debut single that launched the Spice Girls, "Girl Power," and the immortal nonsense of "zig-a-zig-ah." Filmed in one continuous take storming a posh London hotel, it became the best-selling single by a girl group in history.
"Wannabe" was recorded in December 1995 at London's Strongroom studio, written by the five Spice Girls with Matt Rowe and Richard "Biff" Stannard and produced by the same pair. Its most famous line was an accident of the writing session: "zig-a-zig-ah" was a made-up phrase with no meaning at all, kept in because it stuck. The song's real manifesto was friendship over romance — a suitor had to win over the girls' friends first.
Released as the group's debut single in the summer of 1996 — Japan first on June 26, then the UK on July 8 — it detonated globally. "Wannabe" reached number one in 22 countries by the end of 1996 and 37 by the end of 1997; in the UK it spent seven weeks at number one, and in the U.S. it debuted at number 11 — the highest-ever U.S. debut by a British act at the time — before climbing to the top. It remains widely cited as the best-selling single by a girl group ever, and a 2014 scientific study crowned it the "catchiest song of all time." Its one-continuous-take video, shot in April 1996 at London's Midland Grand Hotel — the girls cartwheeling down the grand staircase and crashing a stuffy party — became the visual shorthand for the entire group.
The single carried "Girl Power" into the mainstream (a phrase the group popularized rather than invented) and made the five personas instantly legible, even though the Baby/Scary/Sporty/Ginger/Posh nicknames were pinned on the members by the British press after "Wannabe," not chosen by the band. It was, in every sense, the starting gun for the biggest pop phenomenon of the late '90s.
Similar items
Spice Girls
"Wannabe," Girl Power, and five color-coded personas — Baby, Scary, Sporty, Ginger, and Posh — that turned a British pop group into a global phenomenon. Their faces sold everything from lunchboxes to soft drinks, and their debut became the best-selling album ever by a female group.
B*Witched — "C'est la Vie"
An Irish girl group that made denim a uniform and Irish-dance breaks a statement. Their debut single entered the UK chart at #1, making them — at the time — the youngest girl group ever to top it.
Destiny's Child
One of the best-selling girl groups of all time and the defining R&B girl group of the late 1990s and early 2000s, famous for the powerhouse lineup of Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams. With hits like 'Say My Name,' 'Bills, Bills, Bills,' 'Independent Women,' 'Survivor,' and 'Bootylicious,' they defined an era of confident, sexually liberated pop music while launching Beyoncé toward her eventual superstardom.
Chumbawamba — Tubthumping
"I get knocked down, but I get up again — you're never gonna keep me down." The 1997 pub-and-stadium singalong that became an inescapable global anthem — sung by a band most fans never realized was a veteran British anarchist collective.