20 December 1996
If you list every Irish number one single in alphabetical order, starting with those which begin with numerals, ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls is first on the list. It was also Ireland’s 1996 Christmas number one, and its Christmassy New York video (actually shot with green screen in a London studio) has made it a seasonal favourite.
All that is just for the footnotes. What we really remember ‘2 Become 1’ for is Emma Bunton, Baby-Prevention Spice, wagging her finger and coyly telling the lads to “put it on, put it on”. Joking aside, and whatever our qualms about Girl Power™ as a hindrance to real-world feminism, this was quite a novel and worthwhile thing to do; we lads definitely need to know more and do more about contraception and reproductive health – our own and our partners’. As I write, the way things are going in America you wouldn’t be surprised if ‘2 Become 1’ ended up on a US state’s ‘banned’ list. Perhaps the Spice Girls will become icons of feminism after all, just by standing still.
Nothing so radical about the song itself: it’s the sort of slushy, breathy, icky, soft-focus R&B-tinted romantic ballad that record companies love releasing. At room temperature ‘2 Become 1’ is actually a vapour. Emma’s digression into sex education is the only interesting thing about it, and it surely only got to number one because the zeitgeist’s hottest ticket were the ones flogging it. Put on everything except this single.
