The Spice Girls were one of the biggest musical acts of the 1990s, buoyed to the top of the charts through a combination of amazing pop hooks, charismatic performances, and the capitalist hijacking of third-wave feminism.
One of the key aspects of the Spice Girls’ success was the savvy marketing of the individual members, with each member being given an easy-to-understand persona and nicknames like “Sporty” (relatable/ fun), “Posh” (rich/unpleasant), and Scary (racist?)
But before we got the five original spice girls of Geri, Emma, Mel C, Mel B, and Victoria, the father-and-son heads of Heart Management Bob and Chris Herbert had to go through some prototypes to work out the kinks. Here are six theoretical Spice Girls that never made it past the planning stages!
Crunchy Spice
This potential Spice Girl was an attempt to appeal to the neo-hippie movement of the early 1990s and can be best described as that guy from Spin Doctors with the weird hat in a Baja hoodie, but, y’know, sexy. Early testing revealed that Crunchy Spice’s constant habit of eating Nature Valley granola bars on stage would not go over well with audiences, as well as the inability to get through even a rudimentary dance routine without the aid of a drum circle.
Existential Spice
Heart Management felt the bubbly mannerisms of the rest needed to be balanced out. It does not exactly explain how they initially landed on Existential Spice, whose desolate, Camus-influenced spoken word monologues would have been flatly recited over the bridges to hits like “Wannabe” and “2 Become 1.” Ultimately, they went with Posh Spice instead.
The Spice Girl Who Dwells in the Shadows
The only remaining evidence that this enigmatic, silent Spice Girl was ever contemplated was confiscated by the Vatican after the intern tasked with drafting a concept lost his mind and began raving that “SHE is everywhere!” “SHE is the Gate! SHE is the Key and the Guardian of the Gate!” To speak more of the Spice Girl Who Dwells in the Shadows risks madness, so let’s move on.
Funky Kong Spice
Heart Management contemplated legal action against Nintendo when the popular “Donkey Kong Country” game was released, featuring the popular character with the near-identical name as their best Spice Girl yet. Ultimately, the Herberts would not risk going up against the powerful corporation, abandoning their dream of a denim cut-offs and bandanna-clad Spice Girl who was also covered in fine, lustrous gorilla fur.
Nutmeg
This was a mistake in which a shopping list got mixed in there somehow, but Nutmeg Spice still made it to the final decision-making rounds.
Seinfeld Spice
In 1994, NBC’s “Seinfeld” was a bonafide global smash hit, which explains why Heart Management was eager to ride its coattails. However, the copious, highly specific New York City references, bushy mullet, and catchphrase of “What’s the deal with Girl Power?” did not translate well to British teen audiences.
Apparently, this record’s title is a British colloquialism that means ‘give it a try,’ which is the exact amount of effort a listener should be expected to put in here. The band tracked this one mostly live, while inexplicably managing to commit the most expired-sounding version of themselves thus far to tape. Quite the feat considering how well-known they were for their explosive performances at the time. Nobody sounds less excited to be on the record than lead singer and frontman, Alex Turner, who delivers his vocals as if he’s half asleep while sadly only fully waking for some of the album’s weakest tracks. To quote Turner, himself, ‘ipp, dipp, dog-shit rock and roll,’ indeed.
Fresh off their massively successful debut, ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not,’ Arctic Monkeys’ sophomore album suffers from the urgent desire to repeat the conditions that led to their newfound adoration. This record is essentially the musical equivalent of that time in high school when you dressed precisely the way your friends did in a failed effort to look like a unique individual. By tapping directly into the British dance-rock scene of the time, ‘Nightmare’ drops the satirical elements of their previous offering by fully committing to the trendy aspects of the genre. Because of this, ‘Nightmare’ is the only album in the band’s discography that sounds as dated as the MySpace pictures look that you took in 2005.
On the band’s most recent album, one thing is abundantly clear: Alex Turner is fucking tired of being Alex Turner. With stunning production and amazing orchestration, ‘The Car’ is certainly not without its charm. Still, the voice on top of it all rarely sounds like it can be bothered with all the pageantry. Turner even goes as far as to admit it in revealing lines like ‘I had big ideas, the band were so excited… but now the orchestra’s got us all surrounded, and I cannot for the life of me remember how they go.’ Much like your old bud from college that still pretends to be ‘indie’ despite earning a six-figure salary, ‘The Car’ nails the aesthetic but lacks the veracity.
This is the album that probably led to a bunch of your friends calling the band ‘sell-outs’ while secretly bobbing their heads to the near-perfect riffs that permeate the entire track listing. This record was so phenomenal that most people didn’t even care how corny the band’s cosplay-Fonzie aesthetic was during its press tour. ‘AM’ finds Turner as the braggadocious, Alexa Chung-dating, Drake-covering, single-gold-chain-wearing frontman he always aspired to be. The transformation was pretty similar to your dad’s recent mid-life crisis but markedly less off-putting.
Considering the multi-faceted aspects of the band’s sound, the title of their excellent debut album may as well be their mission statement. Coming as a shock to all involved, ‘Whatever People Say I Am’ quickly became the fastest-selling debut album in British music history, an accolade it still holds to this day. Thanks to excellent singles like ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,’ Arctic Monkeys steadily became a household name. This would only prove to be a modest beginning for the group, allowing them to annoy music fans that hate to see bands evolve for years to come.
As is tradition, every fledgling sleaze-rock indie band must participate in a rite of passage. One that involves going to a remote location in the desert and cutting a record with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme. Consider it the modern version of the Crossroads, and yes; that means we are calling Josh Homme the Devil here. ‘Humbug’ marks a dark turn for the band’s sound, trading in their carefully crafted dance-punk sound for something more akin to stoner-metal, but without sacrificing their pop sensibilities. This very well could have been number one, but there’s a strong ‘we just tried weed for the first time’ vibe on this record that occasionally stunts its progression.
Okay, get it out of your system now and call us idiots for this one, but we only ask that you hold off judgment of this album’s placement until you finally get around to actually listening to it. Some so-called fans of the band will argue that this album is too far of a left-turn, while more observant admirers will tell you that this album is the most the Arctic Monkeys have ever sounded like the Arctic Monkeys. Having made a career out of flirting with Bowie-style arrangements, Turner cranks the sonic and lyrical freak level up to eleven here with a concept record about a high-rise hotel situated on the lunar surface. Many even believe the record somehow predicted the pandemic with its themes of isolation, political extremism, gentrification, and, of course, horniness. Find another of the group’s albums where Turner gets away with a line as cringe as ‘kiss me underneath the moon’s side boob’ and we’ll gladly reconsider this album’s rightful place at the top. This may not be your favorite Monkeys album of all time, but it is unequivocally their masterpiece.
