Recording and Production
While most of the other songs on the Spice album required two or three days of studio time, "Wannabe" was recorded in under an hour. The solo parts were divided between Brown, Bunton, Chisholm, and Halliwell. Beckham missed most of the writing session and communicated with the rest of the group on a mobile phone. In her autobiography Beckham wrote: "I just couldn't bear not being there. Because whatever they said about how it didn't matter, it did matter. Saying 'Yes, I like that' or 'Not sure about that' down the phone is not the same". She contributed backing vocals and sings during the chorus. Rowe stayed up all night working on the song, and it was finished by morning.
The group parted with Heart Management in March 1995 because of their frustration with the management company's unwillingness to listen to their visions and ideas. The girls met with artist manager Simon Fuller, who signed them with 19 Entertainment. The group considered a variety of record labels, and signed a deal with Virgin Records in July. The original mix of "Wannabe" was considered lacklustre by the label's executives. Ashley Newton, who was in charge of A&R, sent the song to American producer Dave Way for remixing; the result was not what the group had hoped to achieve. As Halliwell later described it, "the result was bloody awful". She elaborated in her second autobiography, Just for the Record: "Right at the beginning of the Spice Girls, Ashley Newton had tried to turn us into an R&B group. He sent "Wannabe" over to America to be remixed by some hot R&B producers. He brought us jungle versions and hip-hop mixes and I hated them all. Although Mel B was a big fan of R&B, she agreed with me that these versions just didn't work so we exercised our Spice veto!" Fuller gave the song to audio engineer Mark "Spike" Stent, who thought that it was a "weird pop record". Stent remixed it in six hours, in what he described as "tightening it up" and "getting the vocals sounding really good".
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