Are you into the Spice Girls? Here they’re an obsession that goes two ways: The British love them and hate them at the same time. This is what we picked up on during a recent trip:
Plenty of people in the British press raved about the group’s first live full-length concert, Oct. 12 in Turkey, and single “Spice Up Your Life.” And they were ga-ga over the upcoming Spice Girls dolls. But other papers panned the concert and single, saying the Spice Girls weren’t the greatest singers and dancers.
But a paper called 1015 – sort of the KidNews of The Times, London’s premier newspaper – went the furthest. A recent issue had three full pages (the cover and two inside) devoted to trashing the group, complete with a mail-in survey called “Sick of the Spices?” The survey included an essay contest in which readers told why they hated the Spices; the winner would get a hundred-pound (about $170) gift certificate for records.
It’s hard to imagine one group grabbing everyone’s attention in the U.S. Maybe the Brits are more focused than us – after all, look how they obsess on the royal family. As for those dolls we mentioned – none of them is going anywhere but Great Britain until after Christmas. Dollmaker Galoob expects the British market to gobble up the whole supply of Barbie-style, 11 1/2-inch dolls. That means we won’t get them in the U.S. till next year. Whether they love the Spice Girls or hate ’em, it seems the British can’t get enough of ’em!
