After two pop bangers, introducing the world to the phenomenon that was Baby, Scary, Ginger, Posh, and Sporty, a ballad was needed.
2 Become 1, by The Spice Girls (their 3rd of nine #1s)
3 weeks, from 22nd December 1996 – 12th January 1997
It’s the first rule of nineties pop: any girl group, or boyband, worth their salt needs at least one ballad per year. Especially around Christmas time. And so The Spice Girls start their hattrick of festive chart-toppers with this slow and sultry number.
We’ve gone from friendship never ends on ‘Wannabe’, where boys came a strict second to girl power, to Tonight is the night, When two become one… here. But the ladies are still in control of all the love making. They need the love, they’re the ones who are back for more. It’s a bootie call, basically, two years before All Saints – supposedly the more streetwise girl group – had a hit by that name. The Girls even remind the fellow to rubber up: Be a little bit wiser baby, Put it on, Put it on…
A lot is made nowadays of how nobody realised what this song was about at the time– which is bollocks, frankly, because eleven-year-old me and my friends knew just what they were singing about, and accompanied the lyrics with some predictably childish hand gestures. I will say that, listening now, some of the lines are ropey, such as Any deal that we endeavour, Boys and girls feel good together… And in fact, for the single release, they changed the second half of that line to Love will bring us back together… as they were already aware of their gay fanbase, and wanted to be inclusive. It’s still a clunky line, though.
On the whole, though, it’s a fairly classy first attempt at a ballad, and was always going to be Christmas Number 1, even though they delayed its release so that the Dunblane tribute could have a week at the top. My first thought when I picture ‘2 Become 1’ is the video, with the girls wandering around a time-lapsed version of New York. There’s also the forty-five second fade-out with the violins, in which none of the girls feature, which I’ve always thought was a bold move for a pop single (though radio stations always had the option to cut it early, I suppose).
And so that was 1996. It took us a while to get through in the end, as the turnover of number ones increased. In all, there were eleven one-weekers – which I’m pretty sure is a record for one year– and eight of them came in the second half of the year. 1997 is similarly well spread out, and so we will waste no time in jumping straight into that year, next.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
It’s a bit embarrassing, but this is one of my absolutely favourite songs and I can listen to it over and over. I remember one Christmas a few years ago listening to it perhaps six times in a row. I love the swooping violins. I love the winsomeness and sweetness. I even love the video. I think this is just the canine’s gonads, God help me. Maolsheachlann, Dublin.
No shame! Bit of ‘2 Becomes 1’ at Christmas time isn’t hurting anyone. Plus, it’s a festive (well, sort of) song that hasn’t been played to death!
I really enjoy this song – I’m a sucker for these type of ballads (even when the American boy bands, R&B artists and pop princesses do it) and I like that all the Spice Girls sing lead on this – but man, that music video is so freaking cheesy. Charmingly so and we all need a bit of cheese in our lives, but so cheesy. A lot of late-90s pop videos I’ve noticed are cheesy as hell, even more so than a lot of 80s pop lol. A major artist could never get away with such a video today unless they were doing it ironically.
If I had to rank the three No. 1s so far, it be “Say You Will Be There”>”Wannabe”>”2 Become 1″. But all 3 I enjoy a lot.
1997 looks like a really interesting year for No. 1s.
I’d agree with your ranking of the 3 #1s so far… The video is tacky, but it has a charm that, say, Boyzone’s recent video lacked. I doubt a modern pop group would even release a song like this, let alone a video. Pop music is a much more cynical beast these days.
I’m into ballads but it was nice watching them mime to the lyrics lol…hey it’s better than those damn dance tracks.
I don’t know if that video was uploaded to YT right – the vocals and the images are way out of sync!
What vocals? lol just kidding. It was a nice video.
As an aside, it’s interesting hearing you mention the special childhood memories these records bring, even if you don’t rate their musical credentials very highly (the Gina G write up is the obvious example). I know I’ve banged on about this before, having read the entire blog, but the majority of the “too 80’s, too glossy, too slick” tunes you reviewed earlier ( when you seemed to write off more songs between 1981 and 1993 than from 1952 to 1980) hold these special memories of school parties, teenage nights out and watching TOTP with now deceased relatives for me. Is it a case of boomers, millennials good musical taste, Generation X rubbish, or is it merely because you knew 60’s and 70’s music more than 80’s so had the nostalgia of familiarity when you reviewed?
I definitely grew up with more 60s and 70s music from my parents, and will admit that I didn’t really appreciate the more electronic 80s until I was in my late teens-early twenties. I still hold some residual guitars=authentic / synths=tacky bias… But I was pretty positive about New Wave, and do enjoy the less subtle joys of ‘Relax’, say, or SAW’s bigger hits. But if you mean the likes of Paul Young, Lionel Richie and so on, then there’s just something about the production that is… slick and glossy. Especially 83-84, the height of gloss.
Trying to put into musical context, I think hip hop and house music helped electronic music get some backbone, as you can hear towards the end of the 80s. By the mid-90s, electronic music has much the same ‘oomph’ as rock, as in Prodigy or the Chemical Brothers.
I agree the early days of electronic music sound ‘tinny’ now compared with what came in the 90’s/00’s but that’s obviously technology progressing. But it’s difficult to explain to someone who wasn’t around at the time how exciting and ‘new’ those songs sounded to a 13 year old who’s first chart memories were the likes of Demis Rhoussos and David Soul. I was too young for punk so the electronic/overproduced/ New Romantic/ George Michael & Paul Young stuff was the music of my formative years, I was even known to frequent local dives in full Robert Smith mascara and ridiculously spiked hair, much to my mother’s horror. Looking at it 40 years later, yes it does sound ‘glossy’ as you put it, but it was of its time. My point is I think you gave the 50’s ,60’s and 70’s a free pass based on ‘good or bad that was how they did things then’ but didn’t apply that to the early/mid 80’s. Great blog though and it’d be pretty bland if everyone agreed on everything
Another Spice winner, topped my charts at the time though I’m less bothered these days what with the annual Xmas video plays, but it’s a nice ballad and I’m obviously still quite naive as I’d never noticed that put it on line 🙂 To be fair I was still only errr 38 with my hedonistic clubbing days still to come. I was what you call a very late bloomer….!