Video Vixens: Spice Boys And Barbie Men

Writer Marisa Meltzer, author of the new book ‘Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music’, has curated a miniseries of contemporary women’s music for us this week. After the jump, Marisa’s first contribution, a gallery of boys who sing girl-songs.

While I was doing research for my book Girl Power, I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching everything from clips of PJ Harvey in concert to a toddler singing along to Liz Phair. In honor of the book’s release, I’m going to spend the entire week posting some video highlights.

Today’s theme is boys singing music by girls. When I was researching the Spice Girls, I discovered a number of videos of boys lip syncing along to Posh, Scary, Ginger, Baby, and Sporty. And a little more digging revealed that they were singing along to Britney, Cyndi, and Taylor, too.

There’s something very joyous and celebratory about girlhood in all of these songs. They can express, in a kind of candy-colored way, excitement, heartache, and pride of being a girl. I don’t think boys who film themselves lipsynching are making fun of us girls, though. I think this is a way of expressing some kind of homage to us and our music. I’m not sure there’s an equivalent for boys—that is, music marketed to boys expressly about the state of being a teen boy, which is perhaps why so many guys are so happy to post themselves singing along. Here are a few of my favorites. (Please post any of yours in the comments. I know I can’t get enough of them.)

“Wannabe”
This video has received 10,366,159 views. These guys are so pro! But so adorable.

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun”
I love when he hops out of the bed. Commenter Fartdemon raves: “instant classic – and easily the most manly thing that I have ever seen in my life”

“Barbie Girl”
Matching Abercrombie shirts!!

“Hips Don’t Lie” They really have the Wyclef-Shakira banter down pat.

“Oops!…I Did it Again” A really epic version of one of my favorite Britney songs.

“Love Story” I secretly think teen boys who lip sync to Taylor Swift are trying to show their sensitive side and impress girls.

“Rebel Girl”
And yes, it’s not all pop songs. I think the description penned StraightEdgeVeg1 says it all: “A dude(me!) lip synching to the song REBEL GIRL by BIKINI KILL I look like a huge moron and I’m proud as hell ROCK ON!!!”

Marisa Meltzer is the author of ‘Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music‘ and the coauthor of ‘How Sassy Changed My Life‘. She lives in Brooklyn and posts nineties ephemera to her tumblr, meltzer.tumblr.com.