Mø, The Spice Girls & How The Internet Has Changed Music Taste

Back in the late 90’s we attended a ‘secret’ Blur gig at London’s Astoria. It was just around the time where they steered completely away from Brit Pop and had begun to produce a sound that some people were comparing with Pavement. We have 3 main memories of the show:

1. Queuing from 3am in the morning for tickets.

2. Allowing a girl who we’d never met before to sit on our shoulders so she could get a better view for one song.

3. As the gig finished and the lights went up seeing The Spice Girls sitting on the balcony waving at everyone like royalty. However they didn’t get the welcome they probably expected; angry fingers were shown and bottles and glasses (plastic) were thrown at them.

For in those days The Spice Girls, 5 juggernauts of pop marketing, were treated with disdain by much of the indie and brit-pop crowd. They certainly weren’t cool and we’d guess that if music blogs had existed then they would have been given wide berth, in much the same way as you’re unlikely to see the likes of One Direction cropping up on them now.

Yet somehow things have changed. There’s a number of edgy blog loved pop stars or potential pop stars out there who are very clearly inspired and influenced by The Spice Girls. It’s almost as if its now OK to confess to owning a Spice Girls LP. (Yes that includes us – we own the first 2).

Charli XCX has spoken of how she grew up listening to The Spice Girls and dreamed of being them, Chlöe Howl has the same feisty attitude in her songs, and Mø has quite clearly been influenced by Sporty Spice in her image. (Fun fact : The video for her song XXX 88 featured a Spice World promo poster on her bedroom wall.)

It’s interesting to see how blogs and the so called alternative music press have been so quick to embrace the likes of Mø  and are quite happy to feature her singing a Spice Girls song. It’s cropped up on a whole bagful of indie sites today (from Sterogum to This Is Fake D-I-Y) and it's not exactly as if Mø's treatement is particularly radical - if anything it plays it safe, just giving it a new paint job for this decade.

It seems that the internet has fully blurred the lines between the mainstream and the alternative and nobody cares any more. We’re not saying this is a bad thing per se (after all here at Breaking More Waves we’ve always loved and embraced both mainstream pop and more alternative forms of music – to our ears it’s all just music) but do wonder what the long term lasting effects of this homogenisation will be and hope that somewhere there will always be those who sneer against the mainstream, for the greatest creativity usually comes from there.

Say You'll Be There is free to download. 

Mø - Say You'll Be There