Thirty years ago, the Spice Girls introduced a love song in which the romance wasn't centred on a man.
Released in the UK on July 8, 1996, Wannabe reduces its anonymous boyfriend to little more than a lyrical platform for a fun yet fierce manifesto of friendship, delivered in ways that reflects the distinct personalities of the band's five members.
Mel B (Melanie Brown) sets the tone, delivering the opening line, “I’ll tell you what I want”, with the bluntness associated with her alter ego, Scary Spice. Geri Halliwell brings Ginger Spice’s theatrical swagger to the final warning, telling the prospective boyfriend to “get your act together” and making clear that he is being assessed by the whole group.
Melanie Chisholm brings Sporty Spice’s directness, insisting that anyone who wants a future with her must respect her past and the friendships that shaped it. Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), delivers her own ultimatum with a lighter touch, warning that he must move quickly rather than expect her to wait.
By the time Posh Spice, Victoria Beckham, joins the others in the chorus, the man in question is already an afterthought. The message has become one of friendship, with any prospective boyfriend told that he must accept the group as a whole.
Sweet, buoyant and expertly marketed, Wannabe catapulted the Spice Girls into global stardom. It spent seven weeks at number one in the UK and topped the charts in 37 countries.
Its success also confirmed that friendship was part of a long lineage in pop music performed by female acts, even if, much like friendship itself, the subject was often overlooked or taken for granted.
Wannabe was impactful because of its directness. Its ode to friendship was delivered with the kind of vigour normally reserved for a torrid love affair. It was not wistful or reflective, but bright, affirming and full of intent.
Pop had honoured friendship before, mostly from a polite distance. Carole King’s classic 1971 track You’ve Got a Friend offers reassurance, with its promise that “all you have to do is call”.
Bette Midler’s recording of Wind Beneath My Wings, released in 1988, looks back with gratitude at a friend who was content to remain in the shadows. The song’s emotional weight also comes from the film’s story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women.
The 1985 recording of That’s What Friends Are For gathered Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, Elton John and Stevie Wonder for a charity single supporting Aids research. Its cause was worthy, but the polished adult-contemporary production felt more ceremonial than personal.
Even Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1983), for all its glorious defiance, remains a singular statement: one woman speaking on behalf of girls everywhere.
Friendship songs took on another dimension with girl groups because the interplay and chemistry of real relationships could finally be heard, rather than simply described, as Sister Sledge demonstrated in 1979.
Written by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, We Are Family features four biological sisters celebrating a bond that extends beyond blood relatives.
There is no boyfriend in the picture and no problem to solve. It is simply a celebration of belonging, with “all my sisters” already together and inviting everyone else to join them.
US R&B trio TLC showed that friendship also came with responsibilities. The stern new jack swing of What About Your Friends, released in 1992, asks whether the people around you are prepared to prove their loyalty when it is tested.
The question “Will they stand their ground?” screens those friendships for substance, while Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’s rap asks whether they will survive once money, fame and changing circumstances enter the equation.
Whitney Houston and CeCe Winans made the devotion mutual on Count on Me, released in 1996 for Waiting to Exhale, a film about four friends supporting one another through romantic heartache and personal upheaval.
The key lyric, “Count on me through thick and thin”, reinforces that bond. A piano ballad blooms into gospel-rooted harmonies as two real-life friends answer and lift each other line by line, with both women offering the same promise to the other.
Destiny’s Child’s Girl examines how friends handle more difficult challenges. Released as a single in 2005, it drew on an abusive relationship that Kelly Rowland later confirmed she was in at the time. Co-members Beyonce and Michelle Williams sing as friends trying to address her pain with care rather than judgment.
Little Mix’s Hair, released in 2015, is about being there after the breakdown. Where Destiny’s Child offers a place to share the grief, the UK girl group focuses on cheering their friend up in the video, which shows the members gathering for a sleepover after member Leigh-Anne Pinnock discovers her partner was unfaithful.
Wannabe channels many of these moods and continues the lineage through the conversational energy it shares. Its outlook is brighter, with the song sounding like everyday banter set to a buoyant beat. This is why it still sounds so youthful and hopeful 30 years on.
Friendship tracks from girl groups at large benefit from each member contributing a point of view, illustrating how close bonds are built from different personalities sharing the load.
While friendships can end and loyalty is never guaranteed, Wannabe as well as the songs that came before and after it all point to the possibility of finding people who will stand beside you and help you begin again.
