Spice Girls audition: Mel C sang 'I'm So Excited'
At the 1994 Spice Girls audition, Melanie C sang 'I'm So Excited' by The Pointer Sisters, using sheet music her mother posted to her in London.
Snapshot · The Louis Theroux Podcast
S8 EP5: Melanie C on Spiceworld, comparing muscles with Arnold Schwarzenegger and why she’ll always be a Spice Girl
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Jul 6, 2026
Where this was said
The Audition and Formation of the Spice Girls
At 6:10 · chapter starts 5:00
Starting, appropriately, at the very beginning, Melanie C describes leaving Widnes — 'right between Liverpool and Manchester' — for a performing arts college in Sidcup, Kent, on a grant at sixteen. After three years of training and fruitless auditions, she spotted a flyer seeking girls aged 18–23 who could sing and dance for a pop act. She sang 'I'm So Excited' using sheet music her mother posted from Liverpool (email was not yet part of their world; pagers were). The earliest lineup included Geri, Mel B, Victoria and a girl called Michelle, and there was briefly another Melanie too — 'three Melanies, we were all born in the seventies'. When Michelle wavered and left, and Emma Bunton arrived, Melanie C says 'everything fell into place.'
The Wannabe Origin Story: From Battered Fiat Uno to #1 in 37 Countries
The Spice Girls were signed up having never written a song they liked. They sang middle-aged men's material until they met collaborators Matt and Biff, who captured the chaotic energy that became Wannabe — a two-minute-fifty-two-second explosion that hit number one in 37 countries. The launch was so total that critics and artists alike felt compelled to push back.
Living Together Changed Everything: The House That Made the Spice Girls
Manager Chris Herbert housed all five Spice Girls together — a decision Melanie C calls a stroke of genius. You don't know someone until you live with them. That shared house created the real friendships, real feuds and the unshakeable band chemistry that no amount of manufactured pop could replicate.
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