article: The Spice Girls' Wannabe was the UK number one single for seven weeks and in February 1997, topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks. Two decades on, the group's influence continues to be identifiable in popular culture - and in some unexpected ways. From how TV and newspapers cover music, to the way stars brand themselves, the Spice Girls influenced many of the rules for 21st Century pop stars. Before 1996, manufactured groups were expected to obey management and music label orders. Even though the five were put together by Bob and Chris Herbert, the group soon decided to replace the father-and-son management team with Simon Fuller. And against record company advice, they also chose their first single. "If they decided they wanted to do something, then that's what was going to happen," says Wannabe's co-writer Richard "Biff" Stannard. Visual artist Liz West, a Guinness Book of Records entrant for the world's largest collection of Spice memorabilia (nearly 5,000 items), agrees. "When it was suggested to people what their first single should be, they had already chosen it," she says. Wannabe's release came the year after the battle for chart dominance between the all-male Britpop groups Blur and Oasis. Timing was ripe for an opinionated girl group, says Paul Gorman, the first writer to interview them for Music Week. "Britpop was a bunch of blokes going through their dads' record collections," he says. Wannabe's nursery-rhyme-style hypnotic chant secured a broad coalition of fans including those hard-to-get pre-teens who the music industry had previously considered as a small market. And in the following years, in the run-up to the millennium, the influence of the Spice Girls on this audience, led to the emergence of other acts aimed at a younger market. As a result, acts such as S Club 7, B*Witched, Aqua, Hanson, Steps and Billie Piper started to top the charts. Kim Glover, the manager of girlband B*Witched, who had four number one singles in the slipstream of Spice success says: "They were very different from what had gone before them. Wannabe jumped out the radio - from the very first bar, you were hooked." The single was a springboard for 80m global album sales, and the now ingrained slogan "Girl Power". Yet not everyone was convinced. Girl Power, according to Gorman, was "in many respects an empty phrase". "But it did mark a change in the way strong young British women saw themselves in the '90s and reflected the rise of ladette culture." "Half of it was a marketing man's slogan," says Liz West. "But as an 11-year-old girl, it instilled confidence in me." Glover is more positive. "I personally loved it. As a woman in the music business, it resonated with me." Many current female stars such as Adele, Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Watson have revealed they were and still are fans. Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley told last month's Radio Times that Adele had Spice Girls photos on her fridge. She sang Spice Up Your Life at her June Amsterdam gig. "Adele and other female
summary: On 8 July 1996, a single from five unknown girls - Victoria Adams, Mel Brown, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Geri Halliwell - was released and made them household names around the world.