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."
Music photographer Jill Furmanovsky said she wasn’t taken aback by the overwhelming excitement surrounding the Oasis reunion tour.
The photographer has been capturing the Wonderwall hitmakers for more than thirty years and shared that the Oasis Live '25 Tour, which brought Noel and Liam Gallagher back on stage together for the first time in 16 years, worked so well because the concerts have always been “about the audience”.
Jill, who first crossed paths with Oasis at one of their early shows at the Cambridge Corn Exchange in 1994, explained to NME: “It didn’t catch us off guard, because Oasis have always been about the crowd. Always. There was never much to shoot on stage.
“Even at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, the performance itself was simple, but the people in the crowd knew every word and were completely swept up in it.
“And that hasn’t really changed over time. They just bring out that songbook and deliver it. Liam is still magnetic and captivating, even when he keeps it minimal. It remains incredibly powerful. That’s the essence of their show.”
Furmanovsky, who has photographed icons like Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin over the course of her fifty-year career, added: “What they’ve done with this new tour, the production, and the visuals… it’s something special.
“The mix of generations in the crowd is also striking. I went with my 13-year-old granddaughter, and there were plenty of kids her age singing along word for word. It’s incredible.
“‘Biblical’ is the term people throw around. It sounds almost silly, but when two brothers who’ve been at odds for years come together again, there really is something biblical about that alone. Combine it with what they’re putting on stage… it’s unlike anything else.”
Jill’s latest book Trying To Find A Way Out Of Nowhere reflects her years documenting Oasis, and she shared that no current act matches what the Supersonic band represents. She was also able to photograph them once again at one of their massive Wembley Stadium shows during the reunion tour.
She said: “There aren’t many artists today who can step into the space Oasis occupies and actually live up to it.
“We’re in a different time now, a kind of in-between phase. It feels like the closing of a rock ‘n’ roll chapter. That doesn’t mean talent or creativity is gone. It’s like with painting — we still have great impressionists, but we’re no longer living in the impressionist era.”