LESS SPICY: Is the Spice Girls’ expiration...

LESS SPICY: Is the Spice Girls’ expiration date approaching, even in their homeland? Though the new single, “Spice Up Your Life,” managed to displace Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind 1997” as the No. 1 single, it was in turn dislodged after just one week by another slice of pop froth, Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.” And the loss of momentum seems to be reflected in early sales of the Spice Girls’ new album, “Spiceworld,” which went into U.K. stores last Monday.

After ordering the album in mass quantities, record retailers were finding themselves with the vast majority still taking up shelf space in mid-week. The Tower Records store in London was selling only about 100 copies a day of the 3,000 it had stocked in anticipation of an onslaught.

“I think the record company was looking for 500,000 to 600,000 album sales [in the U.K.] this week,” says Simon Winter, spokesman for the HMV Records chain. “They’re probably not going to get a quarter of that. It would be fair to say that it’s off to a very slow start.”

Winter, though, noted that the broad-based Spice Girls audience is not the kind that generates the instant sales that, say, Oasis’ fans can.

And while still expecting a No. 1 debut for the album, especially since it has little competition among new releases this week, Virgin Megastore chart manager Dan Green predicted that it, like the single, could be in for just a one-week reign, with Black Grape’s much-anticipated “Stupid, Stupid, Stupid” due Monday. But he also suggested that the Spice Girls’ album could sell “obscene amounts” once the hype machine gets into gear for the group’s “Spiceworld” movie, which premieres in January.