Stannard commented about their initial ideas for the song: "We were talking about Bollywood films, the colours and how the Spice Girls could present themselves. It was a matter of how do we get everything in to one song?" Rowe recalled the chaotic experience of the recording process of "Spice Up Your Life":

It had been booked in, that they were coming in to record their next single, and write it, with us. It was at Whitfield Street Studios and there was going to be an MTV crew there filming them as they did this, which there was. Well, how on earth can you possibly do this? You can't write and record a song in half-an-hour with a film crew watching.