MONDAY 5 AUGUST 2019The Spice Girls generation
Fans of the Nineties fixture bridge two eras, yet ‘girl power’ has
influenced and united them ever since. By Caity Weaver
The group’s call to arms became a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rex)
When, through the nighttime murk of the Amazon river, an electric eel locates a feeder fish, what happens
next is instantaneous: a jolt of electricity surges through the fish’s nerves. Its muscles contract
simultaneously, and it is transformed into a living, floating statue.
This is roughly the same reaction that women born between May Day 1985 and New Year’s Eve 1991,
approximately, exhibit when exposed to the opening seconds of the Spice Girls’ debut single “Wannabe”.
Pharmacists, statisticians, probation workers, bank tellers, event planners, bartenders, psychologists,
paralegals, market research analysts, junior members of Congress, phlebotomists, journalists – in the void
between the salutatory “Yooo!” and the song’s first plonked-out musical note, all of these become
temporarily incapacitated, frozen between heartbeats with lightning in their blood. If there is a silver lining