Is there life after Ginger?
Or was it Sporty? Scary? Buffy? Toto? Sigh. Keeping track of who’s in and who’s out in the Spice Girls these days can be such a chore.
In any case, four women with an obscene wardrobe budget whipped the sold-out New World Music Theatre into a pre-adolescent frenzy Monday. Most of the people making the noise were under the age of 10. Invariably, they were chaperoned by a slightly bemused adult or two, perhaps themselves reminiscing about the time they had a childhood crush on that cute little guy in the Monkees. Or was it the lead singer in Menudo? Bobby Sherman? David Cassidy?
The Spice Girls are as cookie-cutter cute as any of those prefab creations. Their public personae, such as they are, could have been pulled out of Tiger Beat magazine (Let’s see, Baby Spice–she must be the babyish one, right? And, Posh? Hmmm, let me guess . . .). They have colorless, virtually interchangeable voices, so much so that the midtour departure of the hapless Ginger barely caused a ripple in this barreling money train. And they dance like, well, the girls next door.
In fact, the girls next door in my neighborhood whipped up a Spice Girls cover group dubbed the Wannabe’s this summer. They dress like the Spice Girls, copy their dance moves, adopt their British accents and lip sync to their records. Who needs to actually sing when the look and the image and the choreography are just so? The Spice Girls didn’t invent that concept, but they are busy perfecting it.
Like Janet Jackson a few nights earlier at the Rosemont Horizon, the Spices used their music as a thin excuse for a night of theater. Jackson summoned tears, caressed a fan, and stared down the audience in a mock display of anger. She could have sold used cars at intermission and people would have flocked to her. The message: Who needs music when you can act?
The Spices, however, haven’t filled in their personalities yet. They’re at the stage where Jackson was a few years ago: Mildly charming and talking in warmed-over slogans.
Their music is frothy, generic radio pop. At the World, they borrowed from salsa (“Spice Up Your Life”), ambient electronica (“Naked”), ’60s girl groups (Baby’s tepid cover of the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go?”), ’70s disco (“Never Give Up the Good Times” and Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family”), Madonna (“Viva Forever”); even big-band swing (“The Lady is a Vamp”).
There were enough costume changes to make Cher look like a pauper. In Spice World, 19 songs required 10 outfits per Spice Girl. Next tour, they should invest in voice lessons. Baby’s voice was tissue-thin pleasant. Posh sounded malnourished, as though her tight dresses kept her from exhaling properly. Scary brought attitude with her piercings, if not her raps. Only Sporty’s muscular wail sounded like it was ready for the inevitable solo career. Ginger was missed, primarily because she continues to appear in the group’s background videos and T-shirts.
For it was marketing that was the star of this prefab evening. The concert began with 30 minutes of commercials, and was interrupted by another half-hour of ads. Concession stands were mobbed 20 deep for Spice bracelets, hats, teddy bears and programs. The quartet even performed their theme for a recent soft-drink commercial.
The most musical moments were provided by Sporty and Scary, with poignant harmonies on “Viva Forever” and a raucous duet on the Eurythmics’ “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves,” which rocked harder than anything I saw at the all-female Lilith Fair last year. On the way out, the concession stands were still clogged; if nothing else, these sisters are surely laughing all the way to the bank.
