More spice?

So today a little voice on the radio told me about this... Spice Girls Musical.. and I suddenly found myself gripping the steering wheel a little harder than was possibly necessary.

Is it wrong to be ridiculously excited about this? Like considering-a-trip-to-London-just-to-see-it type of excited? Probably.

The Spice Girls released their first album, Spice, in November 1996. I was nine years old at the time and therefore, hooked. In fact, I honestly don't know many girls born between, say, 1982 and 1989, who can argue otherwise. Those who do are most likely lying, and can probably still rattle off all five of the girls' nicknames at the very least.

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I once had a quite intense argument with my mother when she had the nerve to suggest the Spice Girls couldn't sing. Couldn't sing. "I can see their appeal, but you know they can't actually sing, right?" I was outraged. My friends and I spent hours watching and re-watching a recorded version of the Spice Girls: Live in Istanbul, arranging the lounge room into a stage, mirroring their moves and strutting.our.stuff. My nanna took a friend and I to see Spiceworld: The Movie and we treated (read: subjected) the whole street to a live rendition afterwards, complete with props. Even as teenagers, we mockingly dressed as Sporty, Posh and the crew for a themed semi-formal dance. The theme was 'movies', it was a stretch.

So why the enduring appeal? Not in the sense they should release new material, but rather why do many otherwise respectable 20-somethings break out a breathless version of the third verse of Wannabe, or shimmy through the chorus of Stop, with only the slightest of temptations and sometimes without even a sniff of alcohol? I suspect that my mum may have been on the money after all, and it certainly isn't the lyrical genius or the powerful beats. The Spice Girls were about the experience. They were a carefully selected, carefully engineered, preened and primped experience. They were fun. They looked like they were having a really good time, all of the time, and they had some catchy songs to boot.

For me, hearing the odd Spice Girls song instantly transports me back to that time, a more simple time, where learning dance routines and arguing over who got to be Baby Spice were the biggest worries of our day.

So will I be rushing to book tickets to London tonight? Probably not. Will I still be belting out Wannabe on my next road trip? Most definitely.