Spice Girls Trivia
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This Spice Girls trivia quiz has 104 free questions with answers and runs from the 1994 audition advert in The Stage to the 2019 stadium reunion. It covers the five members and how the press invented their nicknames, the Heart Management years and the switch to Simon Fuller, the chart records set by "Wannabe" and the singles that followed, the three studio albums (Spice, Spiceworld and Forever), the Spice World film, Geri Halliwell's 1998 departure, the 2007 tour, the London 2012 Olympics and the solo careers that came after. About a third of the questions are easy for anyone who owned the first album, a third are medium, and the rest dig into producers, video shoots, box-office numbers and the merchandising machine that made "girl power" a brand. It suits pub quiz teams, 90s nostalgia nights and anyone who still knows which member they were. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 104 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which nickname did the British press give Emma Bunton?
Baby Spice
Baby Spice suited the youngest member, who wore her hair in pigtails and was sucking a lollipop when the magazine staff met the group.
Q 02Mel B, famous for her leopard print and Leeds accent, was known by which nickname?
Scary Spice
Scary Spice came from staff writer Jennifer Cawthron, who said she chose it simply because Mel B was so shouty.
Q 03Which brand's chunky platform shoes did the Spice Girls turn into a fashion craze?
Buffalo
Buffalo sponsored the group, and its 10-centimetre platform model 1310-2 became famous on the Spice Girls.
Q 04The Spice Girls' 1998 video game Spice World was released on which console?
PlayStation
PlayStation was the game's only platform, and Sony developed and published it in 1998 as one of the group's many tie-ins.
Q 05The staff of which magazine coined the five 'Spice' nicknames after a lunch with the group in 1996?
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops magazine's editor Peter Loraine said the names were never meant to go global, but other outlets soon rang asking permission to use them.
Q 06In 1994, Heart Management placed the audition advert that created the Spice Girls in which trade paper?
The Stage
The Stage advert drew roughly 400 women to audition at Danceworks studios in London on 4 March 1994.
Q 07What was the Spice Girls' original name, before they became Spice?
Touch
Touch became Spice after the group wrote a song called 'Sugar and Spice' with Tim Hawes during songwriting lessons.
Q 08Which original member left the line-up in 1994, opening the spot later filled by Emma Bunton?
Michelle Stephenson
Michelle Stephenson's exit is disputed: management said she was fired, but she said she left after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Q 09The father-and-son team behind Heart Management, who first assembled the Spice Girls, shared which surname?
Herbert
Herbert was the surname of Bob and his son Chris, who wanted a girl group to rival the boy bands; the singers later walked out, allegedly taking their master tapes.
Q 10In which Berkshire town did the future Spice Girls share a three-bedroom house while rehearsing in 1994?
Maidenhead
Maidenhead was home while they spent most of 1994 rehearsing songs written for them by John Thirkell and Erwin Keiles.
Q 11Who managed the Spice Girls from 1995 until they sacked him in November 1997?
Simon Fuller
Simon Fuller went on to create Pop Idol and American Idol, and later persuaded ABBA to reunite for the ABBA Voyage project.
Q 12After a bidding war, which label signed the Spice Girls to a five-album deal in July 1995?
Virgin Records
Virgin Records won the bidding war, and around then the group added 'Girls' to their name because a rapper was already using Spice.
Q 13Which Toni Braxton hit did Wannabe replace at number one on the US Hot 100 in 1997?
Un-Break My Heart
Un-Break My Heart had led the chart for eleven weeks when Wannabe took over on 22 February 1997; the Spice Girls' debut eventually topped charts in 37 countries.
Q 21The Spice Girls' 1997 double A-side 'Mama' was the official single for which charity?
Comic Relief
Comic Relief, which also got a spoof video from the Sugar Lumps, a mock Spice Girls played by comedians including Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
Q 22Which 1998 single ended the Spice Girls' run of consecutive UK number ones by peaking at number two?
Stop
Stop, held off the top by Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins' 'It's Like That' after six straight Spice Girls number ones.
Q 23Which single gave the Spice Girls their ninth UK number one?
Holler
Holler, a double A-side with 'Let Love Lead the Way' that went straight to number one but never entered the US Hot 100.
Q 14In which desert did the Spice Girls film their 'Say You'll Be There' video?
Mojave
Mojave Desert locations in California framed the shoot, and the group's martial-arts heroines drew on films including Pulp Fiction.
Q 15The 'Wannabe' video was shot in one cold night at which London building?
Midland Grand Hotel
Director Johan Camitz had planned to shoot at a building in Barcelona but lost permission days before filming.
Q 16Roughly how long did it take the group, Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard to write 'Wannabe'?
30 minutes
About 30 minutes: Mel C said the group were giggling in the studio and made up the silly word 'zigazig-ha' along the way.
Q 17Before joining the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton had a small role at 16 in which British soap?
EastEnders
EastEnders: she turned up briefly in Albert Square in 1992, a clip she shared with fans on Instagram three decades later.
Q 18Which instrument does session player Judd Lander solo on in the Spice Girls' 'Say You'll Be There'?
Harmonica
Harmonica, the same instrument Lander played on Culture Club's 'Karma Chameleon'.
Q 19The '2 Become 1' video shows the group performing against time-lapse footage of which landmark?
Times Square
Times Square, though the group never filmed in New York: the video was shot entirely in a London studio and the backdrop added later.
Q 20Which 1997 single gave the Spice Girls their second straight UK Christmas number one?
Too Much
Too Much, which debuted at number one and made them the first act whose first six singles all topped the UK chart.
Q 24At the 1997 Brits, which song did the Spice Girls pair with 'Wannabe' as Halliwell wore her Union Jack dress?
Who Do You Think You Are
Who Do You Think You Are; that night the group also won Best British Single for 'Wannabe' and Best British Video for 'Say You'll Be There'.
Q 25Halliwell's Union Jack dress sold in 1998 to a co-founder of which restaurant chain?
Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe: co-founder Peter Morton paid £41,320 at Sotheby's, bidding by phone for his Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel.
Q 26Spice sold about how many copies worldwide, the most ever for an album by a girl group?
23 million
23 million: in Britain alone it went ten times platinum and spent fifteen non-consecutive weeks at number one.
Q 27Which Spiceworld track is the only one left out of the 1997 film Spice World?
Move Over
Move Over, though a live 'Generation Next' version had already been given away free to fans who collected special ring pulls.
Q 28Forever (2000) peaked at number two in the UK behind which boy band's album, released the same week?
Westlife
Westlife, whose Coast to Coast outsold Forever by more than 160,000 copies in a chart battle the media widely reported.
Q 29Which producer, nicknamed 'Darkchild', helmed most of the Spice Girls' final studio album, Forever?
Rodney Jerkins
Rodney Jerkins, brought in as the group moved to a more mature R&B sound on their only album without Halliwell.
Q 30In 1999 the Spice Girls recorded 'My Strongest Suit' for which Elton John and Tim Rice concept album?
Aida
Aida: the concept album came before the Broadway show, which won the Tony Award for Best Original Score.