Spice Girls Research and how they worked togther as a musical ensemble

Spice Girls

Band Members

Ginger Spice - My character is Ginger Spice, Geri Halliwell was born in 1972, August 6th. She can speak fluent English and Spanish and studdied english litterature and finance, after she had left college she worked as a cage dancer in a cub in Majorca, a topless model and a presenter in a Turkish TV show. She became a member of the group in 1994 after replacing Suzanne Tinker who was unable to make the final auditions. In 1996 Top of the Pops named her Ginger spice after becoming known for outragous outfits and her red hair. With the band she had 7 no.1 singles including 2 become 1 and wannabe. May 30th 1998 she announced that she was going to leave the group due to differences within, after this the band had to complete their tour of North America without her. She became a solo artist after leaving and had 4 no.1 singles including Look at me and Its raining men. Because of this combined with the bands success she has the most no.1 songs in British Female singer history. She has written two autobiographies as well as series of childrens books.

Why did Geri really leave the Spice Girls?

Geri Haliwell Piers Morgan's Life Stories [HD ITV 1 03 04 2010]
Gerri Haliwell Looks back

Baby Spice - Emma Bunton, born 21 January 1976, is known as a singer/songwriter, presenter and actor. She got her nickname of 'baby', as she is the youngest member of the group. These nicknames massively helped their popularity as this was a new way of presenting themselves, and girls all over the country could relate to at least one of the girls. In 1994 'The Stage Magazine sent out an advertisement for an upcoming girlband, to contrast with the boy bands circulating at the time. Melanie C, Mel B, Geri Halliwell, and Victoria Beckham responded as well as over 400 other girls. However Emma Bunton joined the group due to a former member, Michelle Stephenson having a lack of commitment, and was replaced by Abigail Kis, until they finally found Bunton and felt she fit the part best.

Scary SpiceMelanie Brown (Mel B), was born in Harehills in Leeds on May 29th 1975. Raised by her Nevisian father and English mother, she had quite a pleasant childhood growing up in Burley. She studied performing arts at high school and went on to become a songwriter, dancer, actress and author. Since The Spice Girls she has released many solo singles and presented TV shows such as The X-Factor in Australia, and a judge on America's Got Talent. She has three children, Madison Brown Belafonte, Angel Iris Murphy Brown and Phoenix Chi Gulzar, all daughters with different fathers, which she reportedly isn't proud of. However she supports herself with statements like 'We're just a modern family'.

Posh Spice
Victoria Adams as born 17 April 1974. She is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, fashion designer, author, businesswoman, actress and model. She came from a wealthy background and was considered an outsider at school. She was a victim of bullying stating that "I didn't have any friends" and "Kids would pick things up from puddles and through them at me". She would ask her dad not to drop her outside of school in the Rolls Royce they owned as she'd be bullied. Victoria was inspired by the musical Fame and decided that she wanted to be famous. She enrolled at the Jason Theatre School. From there she heard about the auditions for a new girl band and was successful when auditioning. Victoria met David Beckham when the spice girls were asked to attend a match as the football team wanted to meet them.

Sporty Spice
Melanie Jayne Chisholm (Mel C) is an English singer, actress, songwriter and TV personality. She was born on 12th January 1947 in Whiston and moved to Widnes, Cheshire at a young age. After attending Fairfield High School, she studied for a diploma course in musical theatre, drama, singing and dance at Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup. During this time at college was when she replied to the advert in the Stage for The Spice Girls auditions. She left college just before completing her third year there, gaining a teaching qualifications in tap and modern theatre dance with the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. After The Spice Girls, her solo career began in late 1998 when she worked with Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams on the song 'When You're Gone', following this, her solo debut album 'Northern Star' reached No.4 on the UK charts in 1999. In 2004 she started up her own record company, entitled 'Red Girl Records'.

History

Auditions -
Gerri Haliwell kept a newspaper advert from the Stage newspaper about the spice girls auditions and because she had missed the auditions she thought she had missed her chance. The advert read “RU 18-23, WITH THE ABILITY TO SING AND DANCE. R U STREETWISE, OUTGOING, AMBITIOUS AND DEDICATED”.However she phoned the Herbert management team and asked them for an audition.

How they started? -

The spice girls were an English pop group, their main purpose was because all of the successful groups at the time were boy bands. Geri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie Bron and Melanie Chrisholm signed to Virgin records as "The Spice Girls". They were signed on July 13th 1995. Virgin deputy managing director Ashley Newton commented on first meeting the Spice Girls: "I'll never forget the day they burst in here. They caused such a commotion, doing a mad routine in the office, all talking at once and being really funny. I called [managing director Paul] Conroy and [deputy managing director Ray] Cooper and said, 'You just have to see this'." In 1995 they released the single "Wannabe" which was a no.1 hit in over 30 countries and was the biggest selling single by an all female group, in the following year they released their debut album "Spice in Europe", which sold more than 31 million copies worldwide this was the best selling album by a female group in history. Their global grosses estimated between $500 and $800 million.

Virgin Records

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. Its American operations were merged with Capitol Records in 2007 to create the Capitol Music Group. The main reason that they wanted girl band was because at the time boy bands were dominating the charts and no girl bands had broke through to the pop charts.

Why were they successful?

Before the spice girls there were only really successful boybands, this meant that the public wanted something different, they wanted pop stars that they could relate to, the spice girls were a symbol of girl power which was something that was becoming more and more popular. The symbolised feminism and gave young girls someone to look up to in the media, this was something new. Because each member of the band were so different every girl had someone that they could relate to, this helped create a brand for them and attract a wide audience instead of just targeting one group, they were able to reach a large crowd.

What do the audience want?

The audience wanted something that was a new age of music, the group was found and produced at the right time for this, audiences were looking for music that was catchy and easy to dance to. In addition to this, they wanted a group that had a whole image as well as good music, they wanted to like the whole idea of a music act including their fashion, style and personality. This evidence was clear from their sell out world tours, no. 1 albums and the varse amount of merchandise that was available all over the world, including dolls, bags, toys, tshirts and lunchboxes.

Target audience and fan reaction

The spice girls aimed their music at the children and young adults. Their first hit "wannabe" music video was directed by a Swedish commercial director called Johan Camitz. This was the single that made virgin records really interested in working with them. And after releasing 2 become 1, the band had topped the charts in more than 53 countries, making them the biggest pop group worldwide.

What do they have in common?

Although all of the spice girls had different personalities, and one of their selling points was that each of them were different so that everyone had one spice girl to look up to. During the reunion all of the spice girls had children, therefore they could all bond on the fact that they were all mothers and had children to go home to. This allowed them to build up a positive energy during rehearsals and therefore be able to work together as a successful ensemble.

Rehearsals and communication

I watched videos of the spice girls in rehearsals, in early rehearsals when the band was still young and fresh, they had very good communication, each person took turns in sharing ideas and having an equal amount of work to do. They were able to successfully communicate when things were not going to plan or one member was not happy with the way something was going. In another video I say they were talking and giving each other advice on what costumes to wear, they were happy to help each other out and work together on things that would help and create their overall image.

However after the band has been together for a few years they started to fall apart, their communication had slipped and Geri had decided to leave the band. She hasn't commutated this with any of the band members, perhaps if she did then the issues could have been resolved and worked out. The spice girls began to change when the band members opinions of each other came out, they were honest about their dislike for each other and made it clear that they have different opinions on music tastes. What they think of the music they are singing and how they should sing it, was all different and band members began to fall out.