add some 'spice' to your life by way of countless dance moves". David Wild of Rolling Stone magazine's had a similar opinion, he called the song "a global call to arms and legs with a distinct carnivallike flavor and a message of Up With Spice People positivity". The Hartford Courants music critic Roger Catlin called the lyrics during the verses "goofy", and described "Spice Up Your Life" as a combination of "savvy Latin rhythms and a self-promoting lyric of dizzy Esperanto". Chicago Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis was unimpressed with the lyrics, yet when comparing it to Aqua's "Barbie Girl", he found that its "unifying sentiment is more admirable". Retrospective reviews have been generally positive. AllMusic's critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, commented that the song added Latin rhythms that "consolidates and expands the group's style". On Billboards 2017 list of the "100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time" it ranked at number 62. On behalf of the publication, Joe Lynch commended the song's "unquenchable energy" and lauded its "joyous samba rhythms and irresistible [...] refrain". Anne T. Donahue of Vulture.com felt that "it kept its energy up to the end and left us wanting more". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian believed that it has a "certain raw energy that powers it along". The Evening Standard reviewer Luke Abrahams described "Spice Up Your Life" as an "instant, wild, chaotic and nonsensical classic", he believed that it "captured the sheer might, power and energy" of the Spice Girls. Will Stroude of Attitude named it the best of the group's single releases, characterizing it as an "unapologetically brash banger which perfectly encapsulates the Spice Girls' bolshy ". On a 2018 ranking of the group's songs, NME writer El Hunt praised the song for its "haunting harmonies and chaotically plunking piano hooks", and called the "nonsensical bridge" the best part of the song. Commercial performance Upon its release as a single, "Spice Up Your Life" debuted on 19 October 1997 atop the UK Singles Chart, with 321,000 copies sold in its first week. This made the Spice Girls the first act to reach number one with their first five singles, and the first to debut at the top of the chart four times in a row. The song spent one week at number one, 12 weeks in the top 40, and 15 weeks in the top 75, ending at the 10th position on the 1997