Spice Girl to Rave Girl and back again.
It’s a Sunday afternoon, and Melanie C has just hopped on a Zoom from Australia, looking bright and refreshed in a sporty white tank top and green shorts. Upon meeting her, you would never believe Melanie C has been making music for 30 years. The thrill of meeting my favorite Spice Girl hits me, as a smile beams across both of our faces.
Melanie C is an icon. This is not fanfare but fact. Her career is one that should be studied. Not only was she part of one of the biggest global girl groups in the world, the Spice Girls, but she has also had a prolific solo career. Melanie C sat down with BUST to talk about her album Sweat, mental health, global pop stardom, and whether the Spice Girls will come back together.
Sweat
As we sit down to have our conversation, I have the song “Sweat” stuck in my head. Sweat, the title track of Melanie C’s new album of the same name, is a heart-pumping dance track that samples Diana Ross’ “Work That Body.” Overall, the album mixes house and dance beats intertwined with pop and disco melodies, with a dash of her signature Spice Girls roots.
Before Melanie C was known globally as Sporty Spice, she was just Melanie Chisholm. Her first love was rave music. There are many parallels between the early ’90s in the U.K. and the U.S. today. In 1990, the U.K. experienced massive unemployment, endless strikes, and Thatcherism at its peak. But in dark clubs, young people were sweating to the beats of the Prodigy in full tracksuits, a style Melanie C would later adapt as a Spice Girl. The rave scene spread throughout Europe to Spain, where Melanie C first heard the electrifying sound.
“I discovered rave music when I was 19 on holiday with my girlfriends, the first holiday without parents, and we were going back to these bars and clubs, and it was just this music I’d never heard before, and everyone was dancing in a way I’d never seen before,” Melanie C says.
Melanie C trained as a dancer. The discovery of people moving with wild abandonment and freely sweating to the beat of the music contrasted sharply with the strict, rigid world of professional dance she was accustomed to – but it woke something in her that never went away.
By the time Melanie C returned to London, raves were everywhere. While there are debates about the birthplace of house music and rave culture, one thing was certain: It had gone viral before the internet was even a dream.
“For me, being 19, I was only just of legal age in the U.K. to go clubbing, and so it was kind of my formative years. It was how I discovered dancing and being out in that environment,” Melanie C says.
By the mid-’90s, she auditioned for a girl group that would later become known as the Spice Girls, and she put away her inner raver girl and embraced her pop persona, Sporty Spice. But rave music never left Melanie C or the world, for that matter. Today, Melanie C is ready to let her inner rave girl dance and sweat once again.
She says the album was inspired by her experience as a DJ and by the influence pop music has had on rave music over the last 15 years. As a solo artist, Melanie C has usually had a more serious sound, but life has thrown enough at her that she is ready to shed seriousness and have a good time.
“I’m in my fifties now. It’s kind of wild. And that’s really informed my making a record that is full of fun. Really looking at club culture, a place where I love to be, and enjoy an environment where people are just coming together. And just having a little bit of fun with who I am, not taking myself too seriously,” Melanie C says.
It wasn’t just dance and the beat that drew Melanie C into the rave scene in the ’90s; it was also the inclusivity and culture, which would later inform the DNA of the Spice Girls.
“I think the whole thing about rave culture, club culture—it’s so inclusive, and it’s something that really resonated with being a Spice Girl. It’s something that we always championed. And we’re so proud that we brought so many people together from different walks of life. I suppose because we were growing up in those times, and that was what was happening in the social scene in the U.K., it kind of infiltrated who we were as a band as well,” Melanie C says.
Those beats and rhythms stayed in her bones. In 2026, we are re-experiencing the world feeling upside down once again. Dance, joy, and inclusivity feel like resistance today, much like they did in the early ’90s. We are seeing a resurgence of raves and house music, setting up a perfect stage for Sweat to bring people together, dance and, well, sweat the stress away.
Although Sweat is more upbeat than some of Melanie C’s past albums, it still carries lyrically beautiful songs inspired by some of her hardest falls.
“I think this whole getting knocked down and getting back up again is such a recurring theme in my life, and isn’t that kind of what life’s about?” Melanie C states.
She says the making of this album intersected with a painful and bitter breakup, which is reflected in songs like “Til It Breaks,” an upbeat dance song that you don’t realize is sad until you listen to the lyrics.
“With something like ‘Til It Breaks,’ that was a really difficult time. It was when you kind of feel exhausted by the weight of the constant things you’re having to deal with, but always having that faith that you’ll get through the other side,” Melanie C says.
The album also coincided with one of the happiest moments of her life: Meeting her current partner and falling in love.
“We have had such a beautiful relationship, and sharing my life and my work the way I do with him is reflected in the more fun and joyous moments on this album. So yeah, life did give me that gift,” Melanie C says.
Another grounding and inspirational presence in her life is her 17-year-old daughter.
“She’s funny, and she’s been so positive. I think lots of parents will identify with this—that if you get the seal of approval from your child, that’s all you need. You know, it’s like, if my daughter likes this, it’s definitely good.”
Melanie C says her daughter loves the album and the aesthetic. This album has been a departure from darker days.
“I think for me, this album’s just been so much fun. And I don’t want to say easy, because obviously it’s hard work getting everything the way you want it to be, but it’s been easy in its concept because it feels so authentic and natural and fun. I think that the music aligns so well with the visual aspect of everything that it feels like a really strong body of work.”
You’re bloody great!
Melanie C says she feels more like herself, and this album really is a celebration of life. Getting in tune with her inner rave girl and her joyous side has been a journey. In January 2026, Melanie C revealed to the public her past struggles with eating disorders and mental health. While her Spice Girls bandmates did offer to help at the time, Melanie C. admits she wasn’t ready to receive the help she needed.
“I was struggling with an eating disorder and having really terrible anxiety and depression. I struggled with depression for a couple of years, and that was all in the public eye, which was really, really hard. And I feel like potentially at that time it would’ve been good for me to have taken a step back,” Melanie C says. “But I think my work kind of just always made me feel safe, you know? And I think sometimes a lot of us are guilty of that—running away from the issues and not dealing with them head-on, because the thought of sitting there alone with your thoughts is too daunting.”
Melanie C was also afraid to take help because she didn’t want to be a burden.
“I think sometimes it’s hard for those people close to you because they don’t want to say the wrong thing. They don’t want to do the wrong thing, right?” she says. She feels it took her much longer to heal because she was always in the public eye, which is something many of us can relate to in our ultra-digital world of TikTok videos and Instagram photos.
“You know, we live in such a pressurized society. I think looking at my daughter’s generation and social media and how we compare ourselves to each other, and everybody’s got an opinion and everybody comments. I think, as a human, it’s really hard to deal with all of these things.”
For Melanie C, going through those darker days in her youth wasn’t easy, and it took her a long time to seek help and heal.
“I think it probably took me longer to get back to feeling strong and healthy because I didn’t give myself the time I needed. I didn’t come out of the public eye. Maybe I should have had more professional help.”
Although it was a slow process and a long learning experience, she is also strangely grateful for it, because when she later had a daughter, she wanted to ensure her daughter never went through the type of pain she went through. To properly heal, she had to seek professional help. Her doctor was the first person she reached out to about her eating disorder, and that professional relationship helped put her on the path of healing.
Today, she attends therapy once a week and works out to keep herself mentally and physically strong. Instead of sticking to a strict and rigid schedule, fitness and nutrition are now about balance for Melanie C.
“I’ve just learned over time to be kind to myself. Fitness is a really big part of my life. It always has been, and it really just helps keep me grounded. For me, being physically strong makes me feel emotionally and mentally strong. So being here in Australia is great, actually, because I stay in Bondi when I’m here. And the lifestyle—it’s so fitness, it’s like L.A. vibes. Everyone’s out walking at sunrise, and it’s just such a beautiful community of people. I love it here,” Melanie C says.
But the biggest piece of health advice Melanie C has for us is to learn how to love ourselves. Melanie C says really learning to accept and love yourself is the key. You’re not just OK; you’re “bloody great.”
“You know, there’s only one of you in the world. And it breaks my heart when you see young people, and I think it is like an affliction of the young that they can’t appreciate how unique and brilliant they are,” she says. “You know, when I was 19, I was so excited about the future, about life and my ambitions. Like so many of us, we kind of get into these situations and we get knocked about a bit, and it really can be quite damaging, whether it’s to your self-esteem. It can take a little bit of time to remind yourself of that wild and free abandon of youth. And I think that’s definitely what I’ve recaptured. Ironically, now I’m in my fifties, right? Better late than never.”
Once a Spice Girl Always a Spice Girl
Melanie C also credits her time with the Spice Girls for teaching her courage and how to speak up for herself. Something she learned from her bandmates while navigating the high-stress, male-dominated music industry of the ’90s.
Global girl groups like Katseye, or K-pop groups like Twice and NewJeans, can run today because of the path the Spice Girls paved, the biggest hurdle being people not believing girl bands could sell.
This year marks 30 years since the debut of the hit song “Wannabe,” which propelled the group into superstardom. But in the beginning, people didn’t even believe they could sell the way boy bands could.
“What was so shocking to us, because we had no experience of this world, was that we were going into record companies and TV stations or magazine editors, and they were all saying the same thing: Girls don’t sell as many records as boys,” Melanie C says. They were told point-blank they couldn’t be on the front cover because young girls wanted boys on the front cover of magazines. “So that literally was what created the Spice Girls. We were like, we have to become a band for girls. We have to prove that girls can do this.”
From there came the Girl Power slogan. The way they navigated sexism in the music industry was by sticking together.
“It was so interesting experiencing the ’90s and being with the Spice Girls, because I was with some girls who were a lot more outspoken than me,” Melanie C says. “We had so much support for each other that it’s wild when you look at some TV interviews, some of the questions that we were asked. Young female artists were asked quite inappropriate questions or asked to do quite inappropriate things, and I always feel so grateful that I had someone like Mel B who had my back and would not stand for anyone making any of us feel uncomfortable.”
Melanie C says their ability to fight against the sexism they faced was through strength in numbers. That strength also helped the band try new things and take creative risks. When the band first got together with their original management, middle-aged men were writing the songs they sang.
“It had no relevance to what we were experiencing as young people, and that was one of the reasons why we were so keen to move away from our first management,” she says.
They naively went forward thinking, “We’re just going to do our own thing.” While it was challenging to set out on their own path, their authenticity and realness as performers made them stand out.
“Spice Girls, we were so scrappy. We worked really hard when we were working toward shows. We tried to get our choreography as slick as we could, but I think part of the beauty of the Spice Girls is almost how normal we were. We weren’t the best singers in the world. We weren’t the best dancers. We had fucking great songs, and you could identify with us,” Melanie C says.
It was that rawness and moving away from perfection that made 12-year-olds like myself hang up posters of the Spice Girls. The development of each one of the Spice Girls’ own persona made each one a star in their own right – every fan could point out which Spice Girl they most identified with.
Their Girl Power slogan and ethos were also a pivotal part of ’90s feminism. Melanie C says the band helped make feminism more accessible to the masses.
“The great thing about the Spice Girls, what we are very proud of, is that it made feminism very accessible to young people,” Melanie C says. “It was almost like a little rebranding of feminism for the masses. Growing up in the U.K., feminism felt quite intellectual, and sometimes you felt you couldn’t be part of that. I think the Spice Girls really helped to change that.”
Melanie C is grateful that she began her musical career with the Spice Girls. She says if she had entered the music industry as a solo artist, she could never have developed the courage she learned from her bandmates.
That is the advice she gives to girl bands today. “You have to lean on each other. It is that power in numbers, and it is also about being your authentic self. Nobody wants to be the next blah, blah, blah. You want to be the first.”
And if you’re asking, Melanie C says the true “secret recipe of the Spice Girls was that we gave no fucks.”
Melanie C and the other Spice Girls stay in touch frequently. She says now that they’re older, they appreciate each other more than ever. As a responsible reporter, I also asked if we would be getting a reunion in 2026 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Wannabe.”
“We will be celebrating. I don’t know how that will manifest, but we are in a really beautiful place, and I’m always optimistic. I would love to be back onstage with the girls. I think we all feel that our legacy really deserves to come back together and to do that for the fans. Because our fans are incredible. They are still so supportive of us after all these years—everything we do as individuals, as well as the band.”
Now Melanie C has come full circle, her inner Spice Girl and inner rave girl both dance and bring joy to us all via Sweat. Melanie C will be headlining tours in the U.S. soon, and making us all move while we patiently wait for the Spice Girl celebration reunion, because that’s also what we want, what we really, really want.
