“Too Much” (Spice Girls) Reaches #9
OK, I should have done the Spice Girls in 1997, when they had 4 Billboard hits, including the breakout hit “Wannabe.” But the ‘90s had too much good music. Ironically, given my love for her, Alanis Morissette didn’t make it on the list, and the absence of Fiona Apple is downright criminal.
So the Spice Girls squeaked by, a year after their peak. But you wouldn’t know it growing up in my house, where tear-away pictures of the group pulled from Tiger Beat took the place of wallpaper in my younger sister’s room until the early 2000s. We had videos. Playing cards. Scrunchies. Keychains. Pogs.
Scary, Sporty, Baby, Ginger, and Posh - Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, and Victoria Beckham - had 5 distinct styles, which made tween girls feel they could see themselves in at least one of them. I saw myself in only one, and I have the track pants to prove it.