Spice Girls' Step to Me: A tribute to Victoria Beckham, Geri Horner, Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Mel B's 'lost' single
28.07.2022 - 15:15
/ officialcharts.com
What with the Spice Girls teasing plans for the 25th anniversary of their Spiceworld album and a brand new Jason Hehir-directed documentary confirmed, we've come over all giddy. Dusting off the Buffalo boots and delving into the back catalogue, we've been on a right little '90s nostalgia trip lately.
But there's one song from Mel B, Victoria Beckham, Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Geri Horner that's cruelly absent from streaming services. A track confined to compact disc. Quite literally one of the greatest pieces of music ever committed to record, sat waiting to be unearthed like some kind of Blue Peter time capsule.
That song is called Step to Me. And it's about time we put some respect on its name.
Officially made available on July 28 1997, Step to Me was released as part of the girls' megabucks Pepsi sponsorship deal. To obtain said release, fans had to collect 20 pink ring pulls from cans of Pepsi and post them off, as people did in ye olden days. Weeks (or, realistically, months) later, a shiny Step to Me CD would magically appear through their letterbox.
As the first verse opens with Mel B's growl of 'I can't believe what I heard yesterday, about your boasting and lying,' Step to Me immediately asserts itself as a song packed with Girl Power. Her significant other's been telling porkies, and Scary Spice ain't standing for it.
'Why don't you step to me, let me take you for a ride?' the girls ask in the chorus. 'I'll take you where you can run but you can't hide/Come on and step to me, shame the devil, tell the truth/I can tell you don't know what to do.'
This is the Spice Girls at their most unapologetic.
Their first release since Who Do You Think You Are/Mama in March '97, the song served as a stop gap until their