Product Code Database
" Move Over", also known as "Generationext", is a song by English girl group the Spice Girls from their second studio album, Spiceworld (1997). The song was originally co-written by Clifford Lane with Mary Wood as a jingle for PepsiCo's "Pepsi Generation" advertising campaign and used in television ads released in January 1997. Through Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, the Spice Girls signed an endorsement deal with Pepsi in early 1997, that consisted of the release of an exclusive CD single, TV commercials, on-can and bottle promotion and the group's first live concerts in Turkey.
The Spice Girls co-wrote with Lane and Wood a new extended version of "Move Over", which was produced by Matt Rowe and Biffco. The version is a dance-pop song with influences of Pop rock, which is thematically linked to the concepts of merchandising and consumerism. The Spice Girls filmed three television ads using their own version of the song and later included it as a track on Spiceworld, while a one-track CD featuring a live performance of the song during the Istanbul concerts was released as a promotional single by Pepsi.
The inclusion of "Move Over" as a track on Spiceworld garnered divisive opinions from Music journalism, while the song itself received a mixed reception for its production and lyrical content. The group performed the song for their first live concert, later released on video as Girl Power! Live in Istanbul (1998). It was also added to the setlist of their 1998 Spiceworld Tour.
From the beginning of the Spice Girls, Fuller envisioned the group as their own particular brand, and soon after, they became involved in an unprecedented marketing phenomenon that led to a prolific number of merchandise and sponsorship deals, a situation that at the time "proved ground-breaking" in pop music. The sponsorship agency Broadcast Innovations conceived the idea to link the Spice Girls with PepsiCo's then upcoming advertising campaign. The agency subsequently approached Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO (AMV BBDO) in London with the marketing strategy for the endorsement deal, which was then presented to Pepsi. Negotiations with Fuller started in October 1996, for a deal that initially only covered the UK and the rest of Europe. In early 1997, the Spice Girls signed a multimillion-pound deal with the company to front its latest ad campaign, which had been expanded to 78 countries worldwide. Robert Dodds, president of 19 Entertainment, commented about the collaboration: "They Pepsi were smart in believing in the girls ... They got in early, ... by the time they actually wanted to run the activity, the girls were the biggest thing on the planet. It genuinely built their business globally."
The ads featured the jingle "Move Over", written by Mary Wood and Clifford Lane of the BBDO advertising agency in New York City. In an interview with Billboard, Wood commented that during the process of creating "Move Over", it was more important to have a "great song first" before any product placement; she commented: "We started writing all these hooks—'next phase, next wave, next craze'—to define what this idea of 'Generation Next' meant, and then we kind of went, 'Oh, no, the product. We got to go back and get the product.'" The lyrics of the song mock past musical styles such as "rave, Rapping, Punk rock, metal" urging listeners to not "do it over, cause that's over", while embracing the "next page, next stage, next craze, next wave".
The Spice Girls recorded their own version of the jingle for the commercials they did for Pepsi, at Abbey Road Studios in London. The complete un-edited two-minutes 46-seconds version of the song, was officially unveiled on 6 October 1997, during a press conference in Granada, as the sixth track of the group's second studio album Spiceworld,(1997) CD for Spiceworld by the Spice Girls, UK Edition CD. London: Virgin Records. (CDV 2850). set to be released on 3 November 1997. The album credits Wood, Lane and the Spice Girls as writers and the Songwriter team Biffco and Matt Rowe as the Record producer of the song. "Move Over" was later included as the sixth track on the group's 2007 Greatest Hits compilation album.(2007) CD for Greatest Hits by the Spice Girls, European Edition CD. London: Virgin Records. (SPICECD 1).
The song's lyrics has been described as "slogan-mongering", while thematically some critics linked it to merchandising and consumerism. Geri Halliwell commented about the meaning of the song: "It's about the next generation breaking free". The "English accented, hip-hopped", rap during the song's bridge was described by J. D. Considine of The Baltimore Sun as "mildly ". It uses Word Association rhymes with the word "Generation" ("Dedication /Celebration /Phenomination /Good Vibration").
The Spice Girls filmed three television ads using their version of "Move Over" as part of the campaign. AMV BBDO began shooting the ads in March 1997, with American director Sam Bayer. Located in a deserted alley in downtown Los Angeles, the shoot required armed guards for the crew because of the menacing setting. The ads featured the group throwing cans in the air, as well as singing and dancing to the song while gyrating around buildings with a silver backdrop containing the Pepsi Globe. They premiered the first week of June 1997 in the US, before later expanding to TVs and cinemas in 60 countries. On 12–13 October 1997, the Spice Girls performed two live concerts in Istanbul, a location chosen because it was one of the most important marketing drive areas for Pepsi. The company distributed 40,000 tickets that were for the most part only available to the winners of one of the largest ever staged competitions in Europe.
In November 1997, Pepsi signed a new deal with the group for a European promotional campaign during the first months of 1998. Similar to the previous deal, it offered consumers the chance to collect exclusive live CDs by the Spice Girls and three other acts, Coolio, Hanson and Eternal, by gathering 18 ring pull tabs from Pepsi cans. The company backed the campaign with TV, press and poster ads during May and June 1998. The group released a one-track promotional single CD featuring a live performance of the song taken from their Istanbul concerts as "Move Over/Generationext (Live)".Spice Girls (1998) "Move Over/Generationext (Live)" (UK CD Single) Printed in the UK. EMI. CDLICS 116.
The song itself was met with mixed opinions from critics. Sarah Davis of Dotmusic regarded "Move Over" as one of "the most eagerly anticipated tracks on the album, if one of the more repetitive". The Los Angeles Times critic Natalie Nichols considered it the album's "most engaging number", an opinion shared by Newsdays Scott Schinder, who highlighted the song as one of the album's "more appealing tracks". In a review of the group's entire catalogue, Vulture.coms Anne T. Donahue placed the track as their sixth best song, describing it as "an anthem so powerful it inspired countless listeners ... to abandon Coca-Cola for Pepsi". Ilana Kaplan of Billboard magazine thought the song was "the perfect anthem for the Millennials". Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian commented that of all the songs on Spiceworld "only 'Stop' and 'Move Over' live up to their vulgar potential". David Browne of Entertainment Weekly was mixed on the track; although he described it as "a laughably vague call for universal togetherness", Browne added that "suddenly the hearttakes over, and you find yourself lying in front of the stereo speakers bowing before the great goddesses of Spice". Edna Gundersen, writing for USA Today, had a more critical view of the song, calling it a "tiresome chant that goads 'generation next'" and pointed it out as an example of the album's "stream of cliched 'Girl Power' pep talks". While reviewing Spiceworld, Craig D. Lindsey of the Houston Press called "Move Over" one of the album's "two grating songs", while Charlie Porter of The Times dismissed it as the "awful song from their Pepsi advert".
Citations
Bibliography
|
|
