Melanie C Discusses WANNABE Origins on Vevo's The Story Behind

Melanie C has taken part in Vevo's The Story Behind series to discuss the making of WANNABE, offering a look back at the song's origins.

Vevo's 'The Story Behind' revisits Spice Girls' 'Wannabe' with member Melanie C (Sporty Spice), who shares the story behind the group's landmark 1996 single and its groundbreaking music video in celebration of the song's 30th Anniversary. 'Wannabe' reached #1 in 37 countries and sparked one of the biggest pop phenomena of the decade, helping the Spice Girls become the best-selling girl group of all time, with more than 100 million records sold worldwide.

In the episode, Melanie C reveals the Spice Girls' iconic debut single, 'Wannabe,' was written in just 15 minutes. She recalls how collaborators Matt Rowe and Richard 'Biff' Stannard encouraged the group to ignore the rules and simply embrace their natural chemistry, giving them the creative freedom to capture the group's infectious energy and define their identity. 'As soon as we heard it, we were like, 'This is us,'' she says, describing the track as the perfect introduction to the chaos, confidence and personality that would become synonymous with the Spice Girls.

Melanie C also shares behind-the-scenes stories from filming the groundbreaking one-take music video at London's St. Pancras Hotel, including rehearsing all day to pull off the ambitious concept. She recalls the chaos the group brought everywhere they went, whether visiting record labels, management offices, or magazine publishers wearing rollerblades, doing backflips on tables, and showing just how wild they were, even when the cameras weren't rolling. She also reflects on nearly three decades since the song's release, saying she's grateful for the time and that she'll 'always be a Spice Girl.'

FULL TRANSCRIPTION BELOW:

- I'm Melanie C aka Sporty Spice and this is The Story Behind 'Wannabe'

- The video for Wannabe was so exciting, it was our first ever video. It was like everything we dreamed of. We were in a hotel. It's in Pancras Station, which is in London, and at the time that hotel was empty. It was like kind of derelict in places, but it was all dressed.

- We were in the studio with Matt and Beth, who are fantastic collaborators. It was probably one of the first songs we'd ever written. And Matt and Beth said to us, you just just do anything. There's absolutely no rules. And I think they were really smart in doing that because we were so chaotic. We were like a ball of energy, and they wanted to capture that in a song.

- I think Wannabe was written in about 15 minutes, we were just dicking around and as soon as we heard it we were like this is us, it's an introduction to who we are as a band and the kind of chaos and mayhem that we create everywhere we go. So once we had that song we kind of knew we found our identity.

- It was a little bit cold in that location. You can probably tell by watching the video. And we had an amazing cast of characters. And again, like the song itself, we just wanted to show what we were like. We were going into like record labels, management companies, magazine buildings causing chaos. We were like, sometimes I remember like me and maybe would wear rollerblades. If we didn't have the rollerblades on, I'd be doing backflips on the table. And, you know, probably some of the things we were living in life were more ridiculous than the things we showed in our videos or in the film.

- The director had an idea to shoot the video in one take which is brilliant, amazing, it was groundbreaking at the time but to get the Spice Girls, 5 crazy girls to do a video in one take is quite a huge undertaking so we rehearsed all day long and of course Sporty had to do a backflip every single time on a table no less but it was really fun, we were so excited and had so much energy because our fantasies and dreams were coming true.

- 30 years since Wannabe was released and I just look back so romantically, nostalgically, I feel so proud. All the Spice Girls do. We have this incredible legacy. We've all gone on to have fantastic careers. We got together, we had this magic spark between us. We conquered the world like we set out to do. And I'm still here making music.

- I feel really grateful for that time, I will always be a Spice Girl.

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