Week two of Melody Monday and we’re going from Barenaked Ladies to the Spice Girls, which tells you everything you need to know about how scattered my music taste was as a kid. But that’s kind of the point of this series. We’re not sticking to one genre or one vibe. We’re just talking about albums that mattered, and Spice mattered a lot to 10-year-old me.
Spice came out in 1996, and this was the first CD I ever bought with my own money. Allowance saved up, walked into a store, walked out with Spice Girls in hand. There’s something about that first purchase that sticks with you forever, no matter what the album actually is. I bought it for Wannabe, obviously, because everybody bought it for Wannabe. That song was inescapable in 1996, and I loved every second of it, video included. The zig-a-zig-ah energy, the chaos of five girls running around a hotel causing trouble, it was exactly the kind of fun, loud, colorful nonsense a 10-year-old needed.
Despite buying the album for Wannabe, my actual favorite track ended up being Say You’ll Be There. I don’t know if it was the song itself or the video, but honestly it was probably the video. That video was on MTV constantly back then, the five of them out in the desert in those all-black outfits, and as a 10 or 11-year-old boy I was locked in every single time it came on. Yes, I know the video doesn’t have anything to do with the album, but I loved it nonetheless (and it’s still a good one).
At the time, I was firmly a Sporty Spice guy, mostly because she reminded me of my fifth-grade girlfriend, which is a very fifth-grade reason to have a favorite Spice Girl. Looking back on those videos now as an adult, though, I’ve got to be honest, I’m much more of a Ginger Spice guy these days. Funny how perspective changes over thirty years.
2 Become 1 rounds out the good singles, and it’s a good song, no argument there, though the video for it does nothing for me. But as far as the three singles go, Wannabe, Say You’ll Be There, and 2 Become 1, that trio still holds up. Those are still really good pop songs, and I’ll defend all three of them today with no hesitation.
Everything else on this album is where things fall apart.
Love Thing is fine, nothing special, just kind of there. Last Time Lover though is flat-out bad, the worst track on the record for me until close to the end. Mama, which was also a single, is not one I liked then or now. I know some people have nostalgia for it, but not me. Who Do You Think You Are is a decent track at least, definitely a step up from the couple of songs right before it on the tracklist. Something Kinda Funny is one I remember actually liking as a kid for some reason, but listening back now, I genuinely can’t tell you why. It just doesn’t hold up. It’s not terrible, but it’s not good like I once thought it was.
Naked was terrible then and it’s terrible now. Literally god-awful track. If You Can’t Dance is fine, harmless, nothing to write home about either way but a decent way to end the album after the stinker that was Naked.
So here’s the real story with Spice as an album. It’s incredibly top-heavy. All three of the big singles are stacked right at the front, and once those three songs are done, the album pretty much falls off a cliff. That’s actually the exact opposite of what we talked about with Stunt last week. Stunt had killer songs scattered throughout that never even got released as singles, tracks like Light Up My Room that never got the spotlight but deserved it. Spice is the inverse of that. Every genuinely good song on this album got released as a single, and everything left over is filler at best and skippable at worst.
It’s a strange thing revisiting an album you loved as a kid and realizing it just isn’t very good outside of the songs you already knew by heart. I still like Wannabe, I still like Say You’ll Be There, and I still like 2 Become 1. Those three hold up completely. But as a full album experience, Spice is kind of a stinker, and it’s wild to think back on how much I loved this thing as a 10-year-old with my first-ever CD. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but sometimes you go back, and the music just doesn’t back it up the way memory tells you it should.
Still, that first CD purchase means something no matter how the album holds up decades later. Everybody’s got that one, the first album you bought with your own money, and mine just happened to be five women telling me what they really, really wanted.
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Theia’s right: it’s largely trash, but I’ve had it for 30 years, and three great tracks mean I won’t be tossing this one out.
What was your first CD purchase, and does it actually hold up when you go back to it? Sound off in the comments. Always looking for suggestions on what to cover next.
