Mel C, Official Site

Music career

Sporty Spice (Melanie Chisholm), along with Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell, Emma Bunton, and Victoria Beckham, shot to fame in 1996 with the release of "Wannabe" (in the video, she was shown performing a back flip on one of the tables). This went straight to number one and stayed there for 7 weeks, making the band the first Girl Band to go to #1 with their debut single, it also went on to become the biggest selling single by a girl band of all time worldwide.

The album that followed of the name 'Spice' also shot to number one all over the globe including USA and became the biggest selling album by a girl band of all time selling around 25 million worldwide. Often to be found in a tracksuit and with her hair in a ponytail, Chisholm earned the nickname "Sporty Spice" from Top of the Pops magazine (all of the group were given humorous nicknames in a small piece titled "Spice Rack"). the next album Spiceworld was equally successful selling around 20 million worldwide and going to number one everywhere.

The Spice Girls dominated the late 1990s, selling over forty million albums in just two years. The Spice Girls went on to become the biggest selling girl band of all time, selling around 80 million records worldwide. They had 9 UK #1 singles (same as ABBA) making them the girl band with the most number ones in the UK, and broke many other records such as film records, music records and merchandises records.

From the early days, Melanie was widely considered the most musically capable of the group. After a third album release (now without Geri) which sold a respectable 7 million worldwide and charted at number 2 on the UK chart, the girls went their separate ways, and Melanie C went to develop what was already a successful solo career. In 2006 the Spice Girls were officially named the Biggest Icons of the 90's winning 80% of the vote made by 10,000 people (Kurt Cobain of Nirvana came in second place)