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In 1994, Heart Management—the father-son team of Bob and Chris Herbert, with the financier Chic Murphy—placed a classified ad in the Stage, a British trade rag founded in 1880 and still devoured, more than a century later, by aspiring performers looking for a shortcut to fame. The producers were hoping to assemble an all-female pop group as a counterpoint to the windswept boy bands (Take That, Boyzone) then topping the U.K. charts. The scheme was not novel, or even particularly nuanced: a gang of cute, vivacious girls, some choreography, a few rousing choruses. “R.U. 18-23 with the ability to sing/dance? R.U. streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, & dedicated?” the ad asked. The trio auditioned some four hundred women, chose five, and soon decreed them the Spice Girls. The new group moved into a three-bedroom house in Maidenhead and began the sort of rigorous yet artless performance training that’s now a hallmark of the pop-band origin story. Each member (Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, and Victoria Adams, later Beckham) assumed a descriptive moniker (Scary Spice, Sporty Spice, Baby Spice, Ginger Spice, and Posh Spice). Chris Herbert, who was then just twenty-three, later spoke about the process as though he were creating a children’s cartoon. “The main thing was to get really good, sassy, colorful, bubbly characters,” he explained in the 2001 documentary “Raw Spice.”
Denne historien er fra November 14, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra November 14, 2022-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
