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This Spice Girls trivia quiz has 80 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.
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Q 01Which nickname did the British press give Emma Bunton?
Baby Spice
The Top of the Pops magazine staff picked it because she turned up in pigtails sucking a lollipop.
Q 02Mel B, famous for her leopard print and Leeds accent, was known by which nickname?
Scary Spice
Staff writer Jennifer Cawthron said she chose the name simply because Mel B was so shouty.
Q 03What is Sporty Spice's real name?
Melanie Chisholm
She earned the tag by leaping around in a tracksuit during the magazine lunch that produced the nicknames.
Q 04Which member was originally dubbed 'Sexy Spice' before the nickname was softened?
Geri Halliwell
The media and the group's own collaborators also identified her as the band's leader.
Q 05The staff of which magazine coined the five 'Spice' nicknames after a lunch with the group in 1996?
Top of the Pops
Editor Peter Loraine said the names were never meant to be adopted globally; other outlets soon rang asking permission to use them.
Q 06In 1994, Heart Management placed the audition advert that created the group in which trade paper?
The Stage
Roughly 400 women turned up to the audition at Danceworks studios in London on 4 March 1994.
Q 07What was the group's original name before they became Spice?
Touch
They renamed themselves after writing a song called 'Sugar and Spice' with Tim Hawes during songwriting lessons.
Q 08Which original member was fired from the line-up in 1994, opening the spot later filled by Emma Bunton?
Michelle Stephenson
The group's vocal coach Pepi Lemer then recommended her former pupil Emma Bunton as the replacement.
Q 09The father-and-son team behind Heart Management, who first assembled the group, shared which surname?
Herbert
Financier Chic Murphy backed them, and the brief was 'five strikingly different girls' who would each appeal to a different audience.
Q 10In which Berkshire town did the five share a three-bedroom house while rehearsing in 1994?
Maidenhead
They spent most of that year practising songs written for them by John Thirkell and Erwin Keiles, none of which were ever used.
Q 11Who managed the group from 1995 until they sacked him in November 1997?
Simon Fuller
He 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 group to a five-album deal in July 1995?
Virgin Records
The name was changed to the Spice Girls around then because a rapper was already using the name Spice.
Q 13'Wannabe' reached number one in how many countries?
37
It became not just the best-selling debut single by an all-female group but the best-selling single by one, full stop.
Q 21The '2 Become 1' video shows the group performing against time-lapse footage of which landmark?
Times Square
The whole thing was shot against a blue screen in a London studio and the backdrop was superimposed later.
Q 22Starting with '2 Become 1' in 1996, how many consecutive UK Christmas number ones did the group score?
3
'Too Much' and 'Goodbye' followed, equalling a record that had stood since the 1960s.
Q 23The double A-side 'Mama' / 'Who Do You Think You Are' was the official 1997 single for which charity?
Comic Relief
A companion video starred the Sugar Lumps, a satirical version of the group, to raise money for the cause.
Q 14How many weeks did 'Wannabe' spend at number one on the UK Singles Chart?
7
It entered the chart at number three before starting its run at the top.
Q 15'Wannabe' debuted at 11 on the Hot 100 in 1997, beating the previous best US debut by a non-American act, held by whom?
The Beatles
It also tied Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic' as the joint highest entry for a debut act, then went on to spend four weeks at number one.
Q 16The '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 17Roughly how long did it take the group, Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard to write 'Wannabe'?
30 minutes
Mel B described it as a 'sudden creative frenzy'; she and Emma Bunton suggested the rap near the end.
Q 18After Dave Way's 'Wannabe' remix was rejected, whose six-hour remix was released?
Mark "Spike" Stent
Stent thought it was a 'weird pop record' and described his job as tightening it up and getting the vocals sounding good.
Q 19What nationality was Johan Camitz, director of the 'Wannabe' video?
Swedish
Virgin executives were horrified by the finished video and discussed a reshoot, but the group refused.
Q 20Judd Lander plays a solo on 'Say You'll Be There'. On which instrument?
Harmonica
Virgin once considered the song as the group's debut single before 'Wannabe' won out.
Q 24Which 1998 single ended the group's run of consecutive UK number ones by peaking at number two?
Stop
It was held off the top by Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins' 'It's Like That'.
Q 25How many UK number-one singles did the group score in total?
9
The ninth, 'Holler' / 'Let Love Lead the Way', set a record for the most UK number ones by a girl group.
Q 26At the 1997 Brit Awards, the group opened the show in the Union Jack dress moment. Which song did they perform?
Who Do You Think You Are
That night they also won Best British Video and Best British Single.
Q 27Halliwell's Union Jack dress later sold at charity auction to the Hard Rock Cafe for how much?
£41,320
That price earned her the Guinness World Record at the time for the most expensive piece of pop star clothing ever sold.
Q 28Spice sold more than how many copies worldwide, making it the best-selling album ever by a girl group?
23 million
In the UK it went ten times platinum and topped the chart for fifteen non-consecutive weeks.
Q 29Spiceworld set a record as the fastest-selling album by shipping how many copies in two weeks?
7 million
The album arrived just nine months after Spice hit America, giving the group two Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 at once.
Q 30Which is the only track on Spiceworld that does not appear in the film Spice World?
Move Over
A live version, 'Move Over (Generation Next)', had been given away through a Pepsi promotion before the album came out.