NEWS
Spice Girls
Courtesy PhotoLONDON – Twenty-five years after they burst onto the pop scene, the Spice Girls are once again looking to take their girl-power message worldwide — this time via an expansive global rights deal with Bravado, Universal Music Group's in-house merchandise arm.
The multi-year partnership will see Bravado represent the iconic, trail-blazing girl group across merchandising, direct-to-consumer products and campaigns, touring, brand and retail licensing, and distribution.
UMG did not disclose financial terms for the deal. It marks the first time in two decades that the Spice Girls’ licensing rights across all channels have been assigned to a single partner.
Bravado owner Universal Music Group holds the global rights to the Spice Girls’ recorded music catalog, which spans three studio albums — 1996’s Spice, 1997’s Spiceworld and 2000’s Forever – and 11 singles, although it doesn’t control their publishing rights. (Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard, who co-wrote many of the band’s biggest hits, including breakthrough hit “Wannabe,” are published by Universal Music Publishing Group, however).
Later this month, Universal will release an expanded 25th anniversary edition of the Spice Girls’ debut album, Spice25, featuring previously unreleased songs, demos and mixes.
Spice Girls have sold 12.2 million albums in the U.S., according to MRC Data. Their catalog of songs has generated 842 million on-demand streams in the U.S., with over two million on-demand audio streams a week in the U.S.
Virgin Records released the Spice Girls’ debut album, Spice, in the United Kingdom on Nov. 4, 1996. It spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart and topped the Billboard 200 the following May. To date, the album has sold more than 31 million copies worldwide, according to Universal, making it the best-selling album of all time by a female group. The album’s U.S. sales stand at 7.5 million, according to MRC Data.
"Wannabe,” the group's lone No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, spent four weeks atop the chart in 1997. (It’s one of seven top 20-charting hits for the act.)
Due out on Oct. 29, Spice25 will be sold as a two-CD set inside a hardback book, as well as color-coded cassette and vinyl versions (pink for Baby Spice, Red for Posh Spice, etc.) and an exclusive remastered Apple music edition of the original record in Dolby Atmos. A range of “Spice Girls 25” merchandise, including T-shirts, hoodies and mugs is currently on sale at the band’s official web store.
Plenty more anniversary items will, no doubt, follow. Spice Girls dolls, body spray, clothing and stationery were some of the hundreds of merch products that flooded the market during the British quintet’s late-90s peak.
A statement from Universal says the group’s five founding members — Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown and Victoria Beckham — will work “hand-in-hand” with Bravado to deliver a new range of exciting product lines to retail partners around the world.
“We are so excited to be working with Bravado again, especially in this our 25th anniversary year and are looking forward to collaborating with the team,” the group says in a statement.
Richelle Parham, UMG’s president of global e-commerce and business development, said the tie-up with Bravado will bring the Spice Girls’ “iconic brand, style and empowering message to fans and stores internationally,” expanding the band’s “legacy and cultural impact for years to come.”
The breadth of rights granted to UMG “gives us the vehicle to truly celebrate their legendary status,” says Rachel Redfearn, vp A&R and brand management at Bravado.
Despite the last Spice Girls studio album coming out in 2000 (the act released a greatest hits compilation in 2007), the British group has remained a hugely popular live act. They reunited after a prolonged hiatus for a 47-date world tour in 2007-08, and performed at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London.
In 2019, they toured again. This time as a four-piece -- minus Victoria Beckham, who declined to participate due to her fashion business -- the group performed at 13 concerts in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales during The Spice World 2019 Tour. The trek grossed $78.2 million and sold 697,357 tickets, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
Although no future touring plans have been announced, Brown recently revealed that last year the band began talks about performing again, before the COVID-19 pandemic brought discussions to a halt.
"I'm always pushing to have a Spice Girls reunion," Brown said on U.K. TV show Steph's Packed Lunch in September. “If it's got anything to do with me, which it will have, because I'm the driving force, I'll make sure it happens… in 2023."
NEWS
Say what you will about the UMG defamation lawsuit over "Not Like Us," but it hasn't been difficult for Drake to stay on top in any case. Whether you think the industry is trying to take him down or people dismissed him as their champion, you're probably missing the big picture.
According to Hip Hop All Day on Twitter, the Toronto superstar became the first rapper to surpass 5 billion streams on Spotify in 2025, continuing his stretch this year as the most streamed rapper on the platform. Others aren't too far behind, but these continually impressive commercial numbers are hard to knock off.
Of course, there are a few reasons for this. One of them is the OVO mogul's recent collab album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Both the Billboard Hot 100 success of the solo cut "NOKIA" plus rapid sales for the project as a whole translate to a whole lot of engagement on the digital streaming platform.
Another driving factor behind Drake's numbers is the anticipation for his next album (albeit with no release date), which he recently confirmed he's working on during a gambling livestream with Adin Ross. As such, we imagine a lot of die-hards are probably coming back to their favorite catalog material to prepare for their wildest dreams – if they weren't already bumping The Boy nonstop to begin with.
Even Kanye West is giving the 6ix God his props these days, even though his long-standing beef with Drizzy is constantly a subject of his flip-flopping tendencies. "This is the biggest victory in music history, right here," Ye said of the UMG lawsuit. "I'm never finna call Drake out of his name. I'm Team Drake, 100 percent. And Team Kendrick, and Team All Of Us... Kendrick needs to be going at UMG at this point. [...] Like, let's stop aiming all this at each other. You have no idea. Everything is worth everything for a moment like this. Where we stop going at each other and we go at the slave masters."
Will Drake be successful and impactful with this? That's up to the court to decide, and up to the industry and its artists to reckon with following their decision. But in the meantime, that Spotify revenue is looking beefy.
