* Spice Girls

SPICEWORLD

(Virgin)

The Spice Girls have left their colorful mark on a new collection of hits-to-be that insist -- no, demand -- not to be taken seriously, at least not on any of the levels of "meaningfulness" that usually preoccupy serious fans of pop music. Actually, as Page Three gals who elbowed their way onto the front page -- they are, after all, the royalty of Spice World, an empire that dwarfs the ever-shrinking British Empire -- Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh, and Sporty have dared the powers that be to write them off as a joke.

I'm not taking the bait, at least not this time. Because as a follow-up to the multi-million-dollar manifesto Spice, the immaculately conceived Spiceworld represents the perfection of a new world economic order, one in which the marketing campaign is the product -- a system in which there is no line separating the advertisement from what is being advertised. Thus "Spice Up Your Life," Spiceworld's (un)pleasantly (aerobi)sizable opening track, with its insipid recitations of nursery-school semi-rhymes ("Colours of the world/Spice up your life/Every boy and girl/Spice up your life") effervescently encouraging the consumption of more Spice. And though the disco strings of "Move Over" may be sampled from some '70s hit, the song's significant appropriation is its Pepsi-inspired mantra sloganeering -- "Generation next/Generation next." Same goes for the amusing big-band finale, "The Lady Is a Vamp," which any make-up-counter connoisseur will recognize as a Chanel reference disguised as a Sinatra tribute. No, the big new British sound isn't jungle. It's jingle.

-- Matt Ashare