Wannabe is a music video by the Spice Girls.
Music Video
Synopsis
The video starts with the words "Spice Girls" and the the location of the shooting of the video "London - St. Pancras grand hotel". The Girls are then seen running across the road and then jump in unison with Melanie C exclaiming, "We're gonna do it, we gonna do it!" A car pulls up and exit a family of four prompting them to sing a verse of Wannabe, which at the same time Emma takes the hat of a man and helps him try get money from the family. Hopeless of trying to make any difference, they proceed in running into the hotel.
As they all run in, Emma and Melanie B thows up the papers containing the names of whom are permitted into the hotel.
Background
In Girl Power! Geri wrote about the concept of the video:
"I remember the chaos and the cold. It wasn't very controlled – we didn't want it to be. We wanted the camera to capture the madness of Spice. I had very big shoes on and fell over many times. I watched it again recently and thought it was like a comedy, really. All the other girls gave me the award for being the biggest prat in it! It's the most spontaneous of our videos." - Geri
Production
The music video for "Wannabe was shot in April 1996, directed by Jhoan Camitz and produced by Mod Films. The clip appears to be one continuous take (although there were two barely noticeable edits) of the girls creating mischief at the Midland Grand Hotel in St. Pancras. Among their antics is Melanie Chisholm's back handspring on one of the tables.
Promotion
A promotional video for the song which includes clips from the making of the video was issued by Virgin Records before the official video was released. In the promo the group is seen singing Wannabe at the recording studio; they described the origin of "Spice" and their first impressions of each other, and they also sang the chorus of One Of These Girls, which would eventually was released as the B-side for their third single, 2 Become 1.
Reception
United Kingdom
The video for Wannabe gets a trial airing on UK cable network The Box music channel, which was the premiere of the music video in the UK. It was selected so frequently that it reached the top of the viewers' chart within 2 hours of going on air, staying at number-one for 13 weeks, being aired up to 70 times a week at its peak and becoming the most requested track in the channel's history.
It was also ranked at number forty-one in the Top 100 Pop Videos of all time by Channel 4.
United States
The video won Best Dance Video at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.