On July 8 1996 the Spice Girls released their debut single "Wannabe" in the UK. Over the weeks leading up to the release the video for "Wannabe" had been played extensively on the music channels. In later in July the girls conducted their first interview with Paul Gorman, in his piece he recognised that the Spice Girls were about to change the face of music in the charts away from Britpop and towards out-and-out pop. He wrote that: "Just when boys with guitars threaten to rule pop life, an all-girl, in-yer-face pop group has arrived with enough sass to burst that rockist bubble!!" "Wannabe" entered the charts at number 3 before quickly climbing to number 1 the next week and staying there for a massive seven weeks. The song became a global hit, and hit number 1 in 31 countries becoming not only the biggest selling single by an all-female group but also the biggest-selling debut single of all time. "Wannabe" also acted as the catalyst for their career and helped the Spice Girls get a foothold in the notoriously difficult U.S. market where it debuted on the Hot 100 Chart at number 11.

At this time it was the highest-ever debut by a British and non-American act in the US, it even beat the record which was previously held by The Beatles for the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" which was number 12. "Wannabe" reached number one in the US one month later.

In November 1996 the Spice Girls released their debut album Spice in Europe. The success was overwhelming, even drawing a comparisons to Beatlemania (it coined "Spicemania") due to the amazing volume of interest in the group. In just seven weeks Spice had sold 1.8 million copies in Britain alone thus making the Spice Girls the fastest selling British act since The Beatles.

Overall the album sold 3 million copies in Britain and was at number one in the charts for fifteen non-consecutive weeks. In the rest of Europe the album became the biggest-selling album of 1997 and was certified 8x Platinum by the IFPI. In the United States Spice also became the biggest-selling album of 1997, peaking at number one and being certified 7x Platinum by the RIAA.

Thanks to the wave of publicity and hype, the group went on to release a further 4 singles from the spice album, each of these also went on to become a number one and topped the charts in over fifty-three countries cementing the group's reputation as the biggest act on the planet.