Posted March 13, 20232 yr 9wfpXI5PKlw UK Chart Run: 1-2-3-4-10-20-24-29-34-37-29-37-50-59-65 (15 weeks) Finishing on the wrong side of the survivor are the Spice Girls with the lead single from their second album. After unprecedented success straight off the bat the previous year they showed no signs of letting up with this song becoming their fifth consecutive #1 single, the first act to achieve such a feat. They went on to achieve the Christmas #1 single later that year as well and continued their all-conquering run into 1998. Final 4 time!
March 13, 20232 yr Aqua. I actually like it more now than I did at the time but it’s comfortably my least favourite remaining.
March 13, 20232 yr It’s close between Aqua and No Doubt for me but will go with the former as the best chance of saving Chumbawumba.
March 13, 20232 yr Re checked and saw I gave 'Torn' my 5 in the 90 thing last year and Chumba nothing but the latter I've been listening to a fair bit and has some good nostalgia as well so will vote 'Torn' but I like them all.
March 13, 20232 yr Poor misunderstood and definitely-not-awful Spice Up Your Life. :( I've always loved it! It's pure pop with an edge to it, with the Latin beats and carnival vibe. The lyrics have a positive and uplifting vibe to them. Some of the lyrics are daft for sure, but for me that's part of the fun with pop music and part of the joy of the Spice Girls. Hai si ja! It's very hooky and it certainly commands attention, which again the Spice Girls were very good at. This is essentially them in song form. I think the song has the right ingredients to be recognised as actually being a very well created pop song, even if it's not your personal cup of tea. Like, even though Chumbawamba's song isn't my bag, I wouldn't declare it as being an awful song. I can recognise that it has an anthemic quality and I understand why it connected and stood the test of time. I guess these polls have come as a surprise to me because it's not often that Spice Up Your Life is regarded as their worst or declared to be awful, more often it's seen as one of their highlights. (Just a reminder: Headlines exists x)
March 14, 20232 yr Jay I think you take it too personal, it's all opinions ;) I reckon I wasn't the target for the Spice Girls, I was very much into alternative music (Tori Amos, Radiohead, Nirvana etc) and I do think Wannabe is a classic and 2 Become 1 is great and for the rest they have some good songs like Viva Forever or even Stop and Say You'll be There... for me personally, Spice Up Your Life is awful and was a weak comeback only beaten by Too Much as their worst single of the 90s... but that's just an opinion, you shouldn't even bother ;) different people, different music taste, different opinions ;)
March 14, 20232 yr That's all fair enough! I was just sharing my views too. I'll take any excuse to show some love to the Spice Girls. :cool: I'm actually a bit surprised that Spice Up Your Life has gone on to be the better seller out of the two in the UK. Apparently they were on the same sales as each other at the end of 1997, both 780,000. Spice Up Your Life certified 2xPlatinum in December 2022 (1,200,000+) while Tubthumping hasn't made it there yet. Tubthumping has more than double the amount of streams on Spotify (219m vs. SUYL - 106m). I suppose that could suggest that Tubthumping has a better streaming presence worldwide, but Spice Up Your Life gets better streams specifically in the UK? Though that still surprises me if that's the case. Or maybe Spice Up Your Life did better in the download era and Tubthumping is playing catch up in the streaming era. P.S. I had no idea that Tubthumping was even a smash in the US, #6 in the Billboard Hot 100!
March 14, 20232 yr ^ Didn't know that about 'Tubthumping' either. Wouldn't have the Americans down as loving that massively tbh haha.
March 14, 20232 yr I remember Homer briefly parodying it in an episode of The Simpsons in 2001/2. So I figured it had some crossover appeal to America.
March 14, 20232 yr Chumbawamba got a bigger hit in the US than the Britpop / indie bands who had been trying to crack America for years - even Wonderwall only got to #8 there. (Today I learned The Shock Of The Lightning gave Oasis their third Billboard Hot 100 hit :o Don't Look Back In Anger was their other one.)
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