Poshs Knickers and the Iconic Song Secrets

On the evening of July 13, 1995, a pair of frilly knickers belonging to 21-year-old Victoria Adams flew out of the window of a London cab, shocking passers-by.

In the cab with Victoria, surrounded by Champagne and flowers, were her four bandmates , Melanie Chisholm, and Melanie Brown – all celebrating having just signed an eye-watering seven-figure deal with Virgin Records.

wrote later: ‘We were absolutely buzzing. We were yet to release a song, but we felt like rock stars that night.’

It was just a year after four of the had responded to an advert in The Stage newspaper asking: ‘R.U.18-23 with the ability to sing/dance? R.U. streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated?’ Emma Bunton, a veteran of childhood advertisements – she was the girlfriend of the Milky Bar Kid – joined later.

The quintet were known simply as ‘Spice’, and although they hadn’t released a song, they had written a catchy dance track that they were convinced would be a hit. Wannabe, which was released on July 8, 1996 – exactly 30 years ago this week – had been composed in just 20 minutes when the girls were lounging about in an east London studio with two established songwriters, Richard ‘Biff’ Stannard and Matt Rowe.

The song’s unique energy, Biff later explained, stemmed from the ‘madness in the room’ as the girls sat around talking about how difficult it was to have a boyfriend that your friends didn’t like: ‘If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.’

Its most famous lyric, of course, is a made-up word that became a catchphrase for the whole ‘Girl Power’ generation. ‘Zig-a-zig-ah’ was a creation of Mel B’s – and Biff thought it perfect for the band’s vibe. Melanie C was more direct: ‘I can’t remember exactly how it came about, but in the song it means sex.’

Mel B added a rap: ‘So, here’s a story from A to Z, you wanna get with me you better listen carefully…’ – and with that, the song was finished.

The Spice Girls were tailor-made for Britain in the mid-1990s, as it headed towards New Labour rule. ‘Young British Artists’ such as Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst were challenging the stuffy establishment with unmade beds and sharks suspended in formaldehyde, while Britpop dominated the charts as Oasis and Blur battled it out.

The Spice Girls more than matched that energy. As Bob Stanley wrote in his pop history Yeah Yeah Yeah, they also ‘echoed the big British stars of the 1960s – Dusty, Sandie, Cilla, Lulu, Marianne – only this time in one package’.

‘Tell me what you want, what you really, really want,’ the girls sang – but the answer, for them at least, was obvious.

When their legendary manager Simon Fuller first met them, he asked what their ambitions were. Victoria blurted out: ‘We want to be household names. We want to be bigger than Persil washing powder.’ Wannabe gave them that fame – and much more besides.

It was Fuller, incidentally, who noticed that every time the five members of Spice bounded into a room, someone would say: ‘Here come the Spice girls!’ The name stuck.

By February 1996 the band were planning to make a video for their first single, so when Geri met leader of the opposition and wannabe PM Tony Blair at the Brit Awards, she asked him if he’d like to be in it. He politely declined.

With or without that unlikely cameo, the Wannabe video proved key to the song’s roaring success. In less than four minutes it distilled the group’s energy as they danced around the then-derelict Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras station as if gate-crashing a party.

Although Wannabe was a hit around the world, reaching number one in more than 20 countries, the video was banned in some parts of Asia because both Mel B and Melanie C’s nipples were showing through their tops. 

‘It was really cold!’ insisted Melanie C. Virgin Records wanted the video reshot, but the girls refused. Mel B said the video was inspired by the days when they were five wannabes trying to find a record label and a manager: ‘We’d track them down and make them listen to us.’

The quintet had certainly experienced a fair amount of rejection. DJ Chris Evans thought they were more suited to kids’ TV, yelling across his office when they auditioned for his raucous TFI Friday show: ‘Why don’t you go back to [children’s TV show] Live & Kicking?’ He later apologised.

The group also got an ‘It’s a “no” from me, girls’ from record company executive and future X Factor judge Simon Cowell, although they took comfort in the fact that he had also turned down Take That.

They got their first proper exposure performing Wannabe on Cilla Black’s hit show Surprise, Surprise, having collared the show’s female producer in the ladies’ loos. The band soon racked up more TV slots and, in an early GMTV appearance, Mel B refused to speak as she’d had her tongue pierced – and hadn’t told her mum.

The band’s then-publicist, radio and TV presenter Nicki Chapman, says: ‘Imagine being seven years old and discovering the Spice Girls on television. [You’d think], “I don’t need to hide, what’s wrong with my personality? This is who I am and I’m really proud of it”. That, for me, is the true power of the Spice Girls.’

Pop superstar Adele agreed. ‘It was a huge moment in my life when [Wannabe] came out,’ she says. ‘On my tenth birthday there were five of us, and we were all Spice Girls. I was always Geri.’

Wannabe leapt to number three in the UK charts just six days after its release.

But it wouldn’t be long before they were number one. The following week, the song knocked Gary Barlow’s debut solo single off the top spot – and stayed there for seven weeks.

Soon after it was released, the girls were interviewed by Peter Loraine and Susie Boone of Top Of The Pops magazine. Peter later said: ‘They were so loud and funny and amazing. We were with them for a few hours. During that lunch, I said, “We’re going to give you your own Top Of The Pops names so our readers can have their own ownership of you”.’