Spice Girls: The Singles Collection review – stop fleecing your fans right now, thank you very much

(Virgin)The reunion that fans were hoping for turns out to be a cash-grab box set – though there is a worthwhile curio featuring Posh on lead vocals

Is there a more taunted fanbase than that of the Spice Girls? Seemingly every other week a story – usually perpetuated by Mel B, the band’s number one cheerleader – appears in the tabloids hinting at some sort of reunion. Or film. Or documentary. Swift denials then emerge, typically linked to Geri or Victoria, and all is calm until a week or so later.

So when teasers showing landmarks from 1996’s Wannabe video suddenly appeared on the band’s official social media accounts in September, it felt as if the fans had something tangible to celebrate. The comments quickly filled with hopes of another reunion tour following 2007’s full-band jaunt and 2019’s Posh-less stadium trek. In a music landscape littered with nostalgia tours, surely Ginger, Scary, Baby, Sporty and (maybe) Posh could strap on some Buffalo boots for a final zig-a-zig-ah?

It was, of course, a short-lived fantasy. There is no tour or documentary, but instead, to celebrate 30 years of Spice Girls, a “handbag-inspired box” containing 14 CDs featuring 160 tracks, including all of the band’s singles, plus B-sides, remixes and a few demos. On CD it will cost you £94.99 (or £98.99 if you want a poster with it), and if you prefer the 7in vinyl version it’s £179.99 (£182.99 with poster). Each box comes with five collectible art cards, a booklet featuring messages from all five members – even the elusive Posh! – and the number 30 rendered as an acrylic charm.

Reaction to the announcement, after the implied promise of the teasers, was muted. “I’m such a fan, always will be, but at this point I just think this is really greedy!” read one. “Haven’t they all made enough money from fans!?” The comment quickly got to the heart of the issue, one that isn’t unique to the Spice Girls, or pop artists specifically, but all vaguely successful heritage acts with a calendar marked with spurious anniversaries: this is asking for quite a bit of money in exchange for some old rope.

In the Spice Girls’ case, the majority of the old rope’s split ends have already been recently repackaged. In 2021, they released Spice25, a reissue of their debut album featuring previously unreleased demos and remixes, most of which appear here. A year later came Spiceworld 25, a celebration of their second album, which featured – you guessed it – previously unreleased remixes, plus the arrival of Pepsi advert track, Step to Me, on streaming. Even their final album, the unloved Forever, was released on vinyl in November 2025 to celebrate its quarter century.

All of this old music arrived in between various other Spice Girls-related anniversary stuff, from official stamps to coins to terrifying Funko Pop! dolls. Famed for slapping their name on to products at the height of their fame, it feels as if nothing has changed, apart from the fact that fans aren’t getting anything new in return. The music itself then gets lost among the merch collections and Uno Spice Girls card games.

In that regard, the Singles Collection works hard to try to rebalance that. There’s no denying the brilliance of most of the singles; Wannabe is still loaded with puckish energy, Say You’ll Be There is immaculate, as is Stop, and very few pop bands can rival the ballads on display here. The one previously unreleased song here (at least officially) is the R&B-tinged ballad Do You Think About Me, a song originally recorded when the band was still called Touch. Its main point of interest is the fact that its lead vocalist is Victoria Beckham, a woman who didn’t even sing on Wannabe. On Do You Think About Me she sounds confident, flitting between sweet and steely.

The Spice Girls’ high-speed career trajectory, from literal wannabes to the biggest cultural phenomenon on the planet, is highlighted by the B-sides peppered throughout the overwhelming number of remixes. The ones from around the time of their debut, specifically Bumper to Bumper and One of These Girls, are brilliant fun, while Baby Come Round is silkily seductive. By second album Spiceworld – recorded in between shooting the film of the same name – time in the studio was so limited that most tracks were used on the album. Perhaps the will-this-do feel of the Singles Collection, and each new anniversary “drop”, can be summed up by lead single Spice Up Your Life’s B-side Spice Invaders, in which each member of the group just chats nonsense over what producer Paul Wilson later described as a “hideous bubblegum” backing track. At the time it showed a band so big it could get away with doing the bare minimum, an impulse that the Singles Collection shines a big flashy spotlight at.