ICONS

I give this attempt at trolling a 3/10. Do better x

I'll start off with a fact check

- The start of Wannabe's promotion, through to the release of Goodbye, is a little bit over 2 and a half years... so we're talking 30+ months, not 20!

- As much as I'd like it to be true, not all 5 Spice Girls had solo #1s. The 4 that did had 8 #1 singles between them (which is great).

- Headlines spent 5 weeks in the UK Top 75 (four of those in the Top 40), not one week.

- Greatest Hits was released against Leona Lewis - Spirit's first week on sale as a brand new album, it was not the reissue.

- Westlife's album was in its second week on sale in the week Greatest Hits came out, not its 10th week. Spice Girls sold 75,787. Admittedly Westlife ran them close, 72,236. Bear in mind this was in the days of Monday release dates. Greatest Hits had 6 days of sales, Westlife's album had 7 because there would have been stores open on Sunday.

- The 2007/8 arena tour - tickets weren't put on sale in the countries that they didn't end up visiting, despite an initial promise to tour there (for example, Australia).

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Spice Girls' hey day may have been short, relative to how long some groups last for, but they certainly achieved a lot in that intense period of time.

For me, a fad / flash-in-the-pan would be the sort of artist who had maybe 3 decent hits and a successful debut album, but ultimately fizzle out and not be well remembered by the masses. So for instance, I would define the likes of The Honeyz as being a flash-in-the-pan.

On the subject of Take That... well, both them and Spice Girls were extremely successful groups of course, but Take That's success was somewhat more local in its reach - their most major success is at home in the UK, and they achieved decent success levels in Europe. Spice Girls were far more successfully globally, they reached a phenomenal level that Take That didn't reach themselves. Take That did indeed stage a big 00s comeback with contemporary music, and hats off to them for picking up where they left off and having the drive to do that. Sadly, Spice Girls clearly didn't have the same ambition to make new albums, so in that sense I find their comebacks hard to compare fairly. Spice Girls always focus on nostalgia, very successfully, but Take That went beyond the nostalgia.

Headlines vs Patience, I also find these singles very hard to compare, because they served different purposes. Patience was a career relaunching single, Headlines' main goal was to attract sales for a Greatest Hits. Take That didn't actually have a new single launch their 2005 Greatest Hits album.

The Leona discussion... as you note, both Take That and Spice Girls challenged her in 2007 and both lost out on #1s. I find it interesting that you frame Take That going up against her in a more positive light than Spice Girls...
Anyway, ultimately, no... I wouldn't consider Spice Girls to be a flash-in-the-pan. They were absolutely massive, they helped to define a decade in music, and they have stood the test of time in the sense that they are widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most successful girl groups in music history. It is a fact that their initial career was relatively short-lived (although that was totally their choice...). Crucially though, we're still here talking about them 25 years later, the media continues to be obsessed by Spice Girls because it's proved time and time again that the public has an interest in their reunions, and when they do tour they're extremely successful... selling out stadiums on the strength of songs that are 20+ years old, that's quite something.

I dont think they were in any way a flash in the pan and i think its reflected that over 20 years later they are still very well known.

Yeah, the lack of support started to happen around the release of Spiceworld, from what I remember, and firing Simon.

Simon had a massive grip on the press back in the day, he had deals with them which was rare but gave them an advantage. When Simon was gone, that was gone too so the press opened fire and at a time when they were literally everywhere! So the industry started to turn on them too.

The overcomercialisation really hurt them. They did so many adverts and merchandise, they got saturated.

Let's remember that the Spice Girls won Ivor Novellos and were nominated for a Mercury Prize in their debut era, two of the most highly regarded accolades for music acts. That's rare for a pop act like them, and they are also the most awarded girl band in Europe, if not the world.

They absolutely deserved better than they got after 1998, that's for sure. The lack of promo in America was a disaster for them at the time, and radio and MTV blocking them was weird (specially as they were still pulling the numbers in!). But ultimately, they sold out their last American tour and that wasn't even when Spice nostalgia was at an all time high. That's huge and speaks of another type of longevity.

They are legends of music and they are well remembered nowadays. Probably in a better light than back then too.