Just now, Spiceboy said:

LOL... no! Northern Star was the only solo album better than Forever. I think Schizo was very clever from Geri and I appreciate the whole era but the album isn't as good as Forever. The other three... their debut albums are not a patch (although I am finding myself appreciating Victoria's more recently I have to say).

VB's album is rnb pop done right! Emma's is nice and pleasant, Mel C's is her magnum opus and should have seen her crack the US alone, and Geri'd was a weak third Spice album. Forever is atrocioud. Is it the WORST ALBUM EVER? I don't know, becsuse it hss three grest singles on it PLUS, if they edited it and used s remix, If You wanna Have Some Fun... Bur ir's just AWFUL. The other albums, except Mel B's, are all solid efforts.

Each to their own but we will have to disagree... other than Melanie C's lol.

Emma's debut album was the biggest disappointment of them all for me, it's just so bland. What took you so long is the saving grace as that is fantastic and I've grown to appreciate more songs on their like High on love and Take my breath away but it's just bland as a whole piece of work. The follow up with Free Me shows just what she could do!

Mel B's debut was better than Emma's for me, the first 5 tracks flow SO well then Step Inside and 123 ABC are decent album fillers, of course IWYB is excellent. Pack your shit and I believe are the albums' downfall.

Had they released in 1999 as planned, they would have still sold really well and toured more.

They had Holler ready late summer 1999, they could have released it and then go with another ballad for the Christmas market, then another single in Spring 2000 to start the tour...

If they were really itching to go solo, wait another year at least and finish the group properly first. In the words of Victoria 'it just fizzled off' which was so sad to see...

Love the album though. It is full of jams and joy! I do hope they will give it some attention at least for Forever25. It deserves it and it gives me hope they did probably their best vinyl package for the 20th anniversary though. That was cute.

If they stick at least WOMAN on to it, the fans will be pleased with a proper 'new', unreleased and properly unheard old track. We haven't had that since Spice25 with Feed Your Love and it was the main thing lacking in Spiceworld25 imo... I could forgive the non-mastering for at least one unreleased track as a bonus...

Let's see. They have hinted at WOMAN various times, specially Mel C and Biff, and they know we want it so....

1 hour ago, Spiceboy said:

Each to their own but we will have to disagree... other than Melanie C's lol.

Emma's debut album was the biggest disappointment of them all for me, it's just so bland. What took you so long is the saving grace as that is fantastic and I've grown to appreciate more songs on their like High on love and Take my breath away but it's just bland as a whole piece of work. The follow up with Free Me shows just what she could do!

Mel B's debut was better than Emma's for me, the first 5 tracks flow SO well then Step Inside and 123 ABC are decent album fillers, of course IWYB is excellent. Pack your shit and I believe are the albums' downfall.

Emma's album is Top3 Solo debut for me. It goes: Northern Star, Victoria Beckham, A Girl Like Me, Schizo, Hot

10 minutes ago, Mr.X said:

Emma's album is Top3 Solo debut for me. It goes: Northern Star, Victoria Beckham, A Girl Like Me, Schizo, Hot

Interesting order, mine would be

1. Northern Star

2. Schizophonic (I appreciate what she was going for and the brashiness of it)

3. Victoria Beckham (which shocks me as I hated it on release)

4. Hot

5. A Girl Like Me

Funnily enough if we go second albums though, Emma jumps to the top and Melanie C is possibly in last place. 😂

12 hours ago, -Jay- said:

I can't believe all four of them approved it and everyone on their team thought, "yes, that's the one!".

To me, it's kinda like let's choose the worst picture and see if our brand can just sell on its own (apparently, not!). It's like how??? Did they not see the picture?? None of them looked any good, Emma and Victoria looked like they were in their 40s, Mel B looked like she was out all night the night before, and Mel C just came back from the rehab. And no one at Virgin stepped in and said, "girls, this is career suicide".

8 hours ago, Mr.X said:

Had they released in 1999 as planned, they would have still sold really well and toured more.

They had Holler ready late summer 1999, they could have released it and then go with another ballad for the Christmas market, then another single in Spring 2000 to start the tour...

If they were really itching to go solo, wait another year at least and finish the group properly first. In the words of Victoria 'it just fizzled off' which was so sad to see...

Love the album though. It is full of jams and joy! I do hope they will give it some attention at least for Forever25. It deserves it and it gives me hope they did probably their best vinyl package for the 20th anniversary though. That was cute.

If they stick at least WOMAN on to it, the fans will be pleased with a proper 'new', unreleased and properly unheard old track. We haven't had that since Spice25 with Feed Your Love and it was the main thing lacking in Spiceworld25 imo... I could forgive the non-mastering for at least one unreleased track as a bonus...

Let's see. They have hinted at WOMAN various times, specially Mel C and Biff, and they know we want it so....

they treated "Step to me" as the unreleased track for Spiceworld 25 so I expect they will just add "W.O.M.A.N." to Forever25 and be done with. I have a feeling they are keeping other tracks for milking us for future releases.

1 hour ago, Rebel said:

To me, it's kinda like let's choose the worst picture and see if our brand can just sell on its own (apparently, not!). It's like how??? Did they not see the picture?? None of them looked any good, Emma and Victoria looked like they were in their 40s, Mel B looked like she was out all night the night before, and Mel C just came back from the rehab. And no one at Virgin stepped in and said, "girls, this is career suicide".

Ha exactly this!!! Mel B looks exhausted

They worked on Holler on 25th August 1999 (or maybe a little after, if the session was longer than a day?). Personally I don't think it's feasible that they could have released it early enough to have also had room for a follow up single at Christmas. I think they'd have only had time for one single release in 1999 if they'd really pushed it.

Let's say they released Holler on Monday 22nd November 1999 (incidentally the actual release date of 'Northern Star' the single... let's imagine the Melanie C album wasn't a thing that was happening at all). Go back 6 weeks (because that was the standard length of time between premiere and release) and that would be 11th October 1999 as a launch date. So between 25th Aug and 11th Oct they'd have needed Holler to have a finalised mix, schedule the promo, arrange/conceptualise and shoot the music video, have a photoshoot for artwork, design the artwork and press the CDs. So I'd say even 22nd Nov as a fantasy release date would have been too early. Maybe some time in December could have been possible, but perhaps not so ideal with the tour happening.

Obviously by December 1999 'Holler' was at a point that they were able to rehearse it/perform it on tour. To me that suggests that if they'd really wanted to do it, it could have been an early 2000 release. It could have been their current single when they performed it at the Brits, rather than it actually still being 7 months away from release(!!).

I looked back on SpiceNews, and it never seemed like 1999 was a plan for them to release Spice Girls music. As early as April 1999, Melanie C stated "next year", in an interview with OK magazine. Would be interesting to know how far in advance they set their sights on the Forever era being as late as October/November 2000.

I think the nail in the coffin for the third album era was hammered in the moment that they all started to focus on recording solo albums, particularly Melanie C and Mel B considering they were both in solo artist mode during Forever promotion. It was really awkward timing. I'm surprised Virgin was okay with it all tbh!

Whenever I've thought about alternative Forever timelines, it's always been that the solo careers would be pushed back until after Forever, i.e. Melanie C not doing Northern Star until 2001 at the earliest. Something I've not considered is them actually delaying the Forever album even further - I wonder how things would have gone if they'd not released it until sometime in 2001? It's kind of unthinkable to imagine having to wait even longer for it... but if it had allowed Melanie C to fully get through the Northern Star era without any pressure of Spice Girls stuff looming, might she have felt more up for it? Or would she have always felt meh about it regardless? Hard to say. In that timeline Emma would have to delay her own album.

2 hours ago, Rebel said:

they treated "Step to me" as the unreleased track for Spiceworld 25 so I expect they will just add "W.O.M.A.N." to Forever25 and be done with. I have a feeling they are keeping other tracks for milking us for future releases.

Thats probably the plan. Bring on WOMAN later this year, we ready!

40 minutes ago, -Jay- said:

They worked on Holler on 25th August 1999 (or maybe a little after, if the session was longer than a day?). Personally I don't think it's feasible that they could have released it early enough to have also had room for a follow up single at Christmas. I think they'd have only had time for one single release in 1999 if they'd really pushed it.

Let's say they released Holler on Monday 22nd November 1999 (incidentally the actual release date of 'Northern Star' the single... let's imagine the Melanie C album wasn't a thing that was happening at all). Go back 6 weeks (because that was the standard length of time between premiere and release) and that would be 11th October 1999 as a launch date. So between 25th Aug and 11th Oct they'd have needed Holler to have a finalised mix, schedule the promo, arrange/conceptualise and shoot the music video, have a photoshoot for artwork, design the artwork and press the CDs. So I'd say even 22nd Nov as a fantasy release date would have been too early. Maybe some time in December could have been possible, but perhaps not so ideal with the tour happening.

Obviously by December 1999 'Holler' was at a point that they were able to rehearse it/perform it on tour. To me that suggests that if they'd really wanted to do it, it could have been an early 2000 release. It could have been their current single when they performed it at the Brits, rather than it actually still being 7 months away from release(!!).

I looked back on SpiceNews, and it never seemed like 1999 was a plan for them to release Spice Girls music. As early as April 1999, Melanie C stated "next year", in an interview with OK magazine. Would be interesting to know how far in advance they set their sights on the Forever era being as late as October/November 2000.

I think the nail in the coffin for the third album era was hammered in the moment that they all started to focus on recording solo albums, particularly Melanie C and Mel B considering they were both in solo artist mode during Forever promotion. It was really awkward timing. I'm surprised Virgin was okay with it all tbh!

Whenever I've thought about alternative Forever timelines, it's always been that the solo careers would be pushed back until after Forever, i.e. Melanie C not doing Northern Star until 2001 at the earliest. Something I've not considered is them actually delaying the Forever album even further - I wonder how things would have gone if they'd not released it until sometime in 2001? It's kind of unthinkable to imagine having to wait even longer for it... but if it had allowed Melanie C to fully get through the Northern Star era without any pressure of Spice Girls stuff looming, might she have felt more up for it? Or would she have always felt meh about it regardless? Hard to say. In that timeline Emma would have to delay her own album.

This is fair, and yeah probably the recordings were done too late overall but Spiceworld was also done quite last minute - as mentioned by all of them - and to a very quick turn around/deadline. So it wouldnt necessarily be impossible.

Also, Darkchild talked about going to London in early 1999 (February?!...) to work with the Spice Girls so some early sessions were already done. The August ones were probably to polish things off... If you listen to the Elliott Kennedy leaked tracks, they are all very polished, not really 'demo quality' so they were all most probably recorded/worked on pre-Summer 1999 and then polished off then to be ready for release.

Clearly though by summer 1999 the plan was to have the solo works first - probably forced by Northern Star's release and Mel C's lack of interest in the group. It f***ing sucks. This is what really ultimately killed the group, in my opinion.

They could have easily released a song or two at least in 1999 and then do the album Spring 2000 (as it was also suggested by them and was probably a plan at some point).

I really wish they had focused on the group in 1999... Damn... what an absolute waste. I would gladly trade all the solo projects - all of them! - for an album in 1999 followed by a proper tour.

Two albums. Forever late 2000, Sugar and Spice early 1999. Well, three albums. Christmas album, promoted via tour, Christmas 1998. Greatest Hits early 2001, with a tour for the TWO albums of 1999 and 2000 in 2001, peomoting solo songs on tour as well. Band disbands, full solo spice era begins/ continues on from tour promo.

If we really overanalyse it, two pregancies was not great for the fortunes of the group/the third album (not that I'd hold it against them to have personal lives) but... it definitely made them take their foot off the gas pedal long enough for Melanie C to decide to fill her time with recording an album of her own.

Regardless of pregnancies I struggle to imagine late 1998 being anything other than 'Goodbye'. Although maybe if Simon had still been their manager he'd have got them recording the album during the tour and had it out by November 98!

9 minutes ago, -Jay- said:

If we really overanalyse it, two pregancies was not great for the fortunes of the group/the third album (not that I'd hold it against them to have personal lives) but... it definitely made them take their foot off the gas pedal long enough for Melanie C to decide to fill her time with recording an album of her own.

Regardless of pregnancies I struggle to imagine late 1998 being anything other than 'Goodbye'. Although maybe if Simon had still been their manager he'd have got them recording the album during the tour and had it out by November 98!

I think pregnancies didn't help group wise, for sure, but they were active nonetheless throughout it, recording their solo albums each and doing other random bits and bobs... Ultimately they could have done the live album in 1998 with the Wembley recordings + group album in 1999 + tour and then call it quits to focus on solo stuff properly...

Sadly, I think the main spanner in the works was Mel C at the time...

The main spanner in the works was the pregnancies of Victoria and Mel B and the desire of all 4 of them to have solo careers. Victoria say's in her own autobiography that all the girls were keen to release the solo work they had been working on at that time, and includes herself in that, it wasn't just Melanie C who had already released her album.

The likelihood is that the solo albums would not have happened so quickly had Mel B and Victoria gotten pregnant so quickly, (which always astounds me that they had babies at the height of the careers, utter madness), other than a few releases here and there with the collaborations they released (both Mel's released theirs when they were still very much in Spice Girls modes). The girls getting pregnant forced Emma and Melanie C to stop with band activities, which Melanie was always vocal she didn't want to do, she wanted to continue with the group in 1998, never mind 1999.

The difference is that Melanie has always been far more passionate about performing and recording than any of the other 4, so the forced break basically gave her the outlet to continue working on solo stuff, and in fact with her mental health she probably had to as stopping completely would likely have forced her to confront the fact that she was not well. I don't blame her one bit for saying "hang on I've worked my ass off on this record while you two wanted time off to do your own things too (because let's be honest both of them did their own stuff with solo work and brand Beckham too), so you can wait now until I'm done with it."

The aftermath was obviously very different as by that point Melanie was clearly very unwell and the band dynamic was not healthy for her. The other girls knew she was struggling and their response to her struggles was not to support her but to turn her picture round at Virgin HQ like they did to Geri when she left the group. Melanie B herself in her own words has admitted that she bullied Melanie C during this time (as well as at the beginning of the group too) and Victoria has also spoken out and said that she wishes that she had given Melanie more time and support during that time.

It's obviously a combination of many things that caused the band to fizzle out in such a crap way during that period but, Melanie C alone is not to blame, all five of the girls contributed to the demise of the group with their own egos and behaviours. Maybe not Emma to be fair, she is the only one who seems to have been endlessly positive about the group, but then she admits she was insulated from a lot of it by the rest of the group members, and she certainly did not get the rough ride that the other 4 got from the press during that time either.

Either way, I'd sacrifice every release after 1999 for Northern Star personally, it's in my top 10 favourite albums ever. 😍

I would never blame women's pregnancies on the fall out of a girlband. Even during and after the pregnancies, they were still active.

It was the solo crap that stopped them from focusing on the group, sadly. Mel C was quite adamant that she would put out the album and thus, the focus on the group stalled. Had Mel C waited till after Forever, the others would have done the same.

A few singles dropped in 1998/1999 as solo artists wouldnt be complete end to anything. That's very common in pop group bandmembers to do. It was the complete focus shift from Mel C onto her solo album that ultimately delayed and broke everything up.

They had a good thing still going on in 1998/1999 as a band that they could have capitalised on. By summer 2000 with the overabundance of solo projects, people got bored of them which ultimately made the group stall and their solo projects also suffer eventually.

At the end of the day, the demise is due to all five of them.

Once they decided to sack Simon Fuller, they took on the burden of management and created friction among themselves. Basically 1998 was laid out for them; they just continued the tour schedule that Simon had created for them a year ahead. That's why once the tour was over: they wanted to time off (pregnancies and marriages also were part of it).

However, they didn't plan to get back until 8 months later to start working on their third album. By that time, Mel C already focused on her solo career. They had enough materials to release in 1999 but their lack of confidence stopped it from happening (the other three; Mel C was focusing on solo touring at the time). They were convinced by Virgin A&R to go full American R&B; If Geri was around, I doubt she'd let that happen. So they delayed the album even further.

During their 1998 Wembley performance for the Back in Britain finale Spiceworld tour, Mel B did say their 3rd album was coming out "next year" - 1999.

There are so many "could have beens", but nobody truly knows.

With just three studio albums, they're still the best selling GG of all time.

I personally like Forever; yes it's different from the other two, but it's still a great album.

And yes, the sales were awful because the public had checked out, and so had the girls themselves.

The banged about date at the time was 1st July 1999 for the album release, even mentioned in early 1999 by Mel C herself, who also said the album was pretty much done...

I guess that would make sense as we know they had been recording during the US leg of the tour, and then again after end of the tour and early 1999... However, this was probably delayed to give space for Victoria and Mel B to recover from giving birth for a bit longer and Mel C to finish recording her own album.