Spice Up Your Life - Music Video

Music Video

The music video for "Spice Up Your Life" was directed on 6 September 1997, by Marcus Nispel in a two-day shoot located in New York City. The video features the group in a futuristic setting, inspired by the 1982 film Blade Runner, controlling every aspect of society in a dark futuristic cityscape. Nispel came up with the concept based on a sketch that was faxed to him signed "Ginger Spice". He recalls: "I looked at what Disney did to Times Square in NYC and tried to imagine how the Spice Girls would transform it, as their career seemed to have no limits—at the time." The group was not consulted about the concept. According to Brown's autobiography, they wanted a carnival party theme, but were too tired to fight about it with the label, and ended up with a concept linked to the theme of world domination. Brown commented: "It wasn't right. I don't think any of us liked it much, even though we enjoyed making it. I still can't understand what's going on in it half the time." The video exclusively premiered on MTV in September 1997.

The video featured the group as globalising masters, in a spaceship going through a dark city, looking at themselves on various billboards, while shoots of rooms and bars with televisions plays the videos for "Say You'll Be There" and "Wannabe", live footage of the girls inside the spaceship is also broadcast. The group then zoom aimlessly around the city on flying surfboards. The scenes are interspersed with shoots of the girls doing different things, such as Brown at a turntable with bright flashing lights and a large rotating fan, Beckham posing on top of a platform while photographers takes pictures of her, Chisholm winning a boxing match and Halliwell giving a speech at a press conference to a crowd of journalists. The video won the award for Best Video at the 1998 Edison Music Awards, and was nominated for Best Video at the 1998 BRIT Awards.