"Why yes, we all have shagged Richard Branson!"

The real story isn't as pretty as the New Kids on the Block story. First we must document Spice Girls' original story.
The five women of Spice Girls knew each other for years, meeting each other at various auditions. They were quite close and, by luck, were all placed together by a manager into a new band. The Girls quickly tired of the manager's ideas for their band, however, and they ditched him. For four years, they lived together in a house, writing the songs that are now the Spice album. They finally got a new agent/manager and signed with Virgin Records. The rest is, as they say, history.
Or not quite. The slightly too-perfect story was doubted by many (possibly because it couldn't possibly take anyone four years to write "I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazigah"), and slowly it started to crack. The first admission the Girls themselves made was about their dubious ages. They shaved up to four years each by their own admission, though anyone in the know should know it's even more (case in point: Emma's passport was recently published by a British newspaper. She ain't 21, folks). With that admission of untruth already out for the sharks, it was only time before people started seriously picking apart the rest of the fairy tale.
The original manager, Ian Lee, was found. The Girls aren't a bunch of longtime friends; they didn't meet until his audition for a "lively" girl band (originally called Touch). Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell were not in the original line up, and there was a sixth Spice Girl. Geri and Emma pushed their way into the line up, and the sixth Spice Girl disappeared. The manager then started moulding the Girls.
According to him, they were all very rough. Geri's voice was reportedly the least melodious (meaning it was even worse than Victoria's!), and none of them were talented dancers. Melanie C was reported to be the most talented one, but wasted her time watching television.
The manager never was told why the Girls left him, and they've never really credited him in helping them. His theory on their departure is as follows: He was going to fire one of the Girls (which one is never said outright, but he more than hints at it being Geri), who found out and then convinced the other Girls to leave that management. In his words, "The least talented ones are always the most dangerous."
Their songs are another matter. The Girls started out by claiming they wrote the majority of the songs. However, after a bit of pushing, it became that they wrote about half of each song. Currently, the Girls themselves are admitting that the songs are actually mostly written by other people, and they just deal with "finishing touches."
However, this is be untrue, too. Besides the obvious example of "Move Over", aka the Pepsi song, according to fellow teenybopper band 911, the hit single "Say You'll Be There" was originally offered to them, a year ago, without Spice Girls' songwriting credits. So who's telling psychophantic teenage girls a fib?
The bottom line is that the New Kids story isn't entirely far from the truth. The Spices measure up against the New Kids almost song for song on both their debut albums, and they both have very similar "showbiz personalities" to each member. Both bands were created by a manager at an audition, and both bands tried to claim they were lifelong friends.
At least the New Kids had the credibility in that two were brothers, even if the majority of them weren't lifelong friends.
Now the Spices have cowritten a book (It's facinating literature, honest), they're releasing their videos and they've done a film, which has been panned by every critic in Europe. They are worth £4 million each.
If they start saving their money now, instead of doing the typical pop star spendathon, they might be able to live nicely once their 12-year-old fans grow up and move on to better music.

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