On 11/03/2025 at 17:07, vibe said:

On The Horizon did well on radio so for it to miss the top 10 is still a shock!!

I'm not sure it really was. I know they were relying on it to do the business, but at that point the album had completely floundered (as had the lead single), it wasn't gonna be anything but diminishing returns after that no matter what.

^ it was i checked the radio charts.

Radio Airplay - 'Reason' era:

Here It Comes Again

26/01/03: 67-45-22-22-11-12-09-17-32-61-x

 

On the Horizon

18/05/03: 49-27-08-09-13-31-47-78-x

20/07/03: 83-82-93-x 

 

Melt

26/10/03: 77-58-34-38-44-88-x 

Underlined positions = the week that the single entered the official singles chart, i.e. when On the Horizon was at #9 in the radio chart, it entered at #14 in the singles chart.

---

As mentioned by vibe, On the Horizon had pretty strong radio support going into its release. Other factors (such as music video airplay, and the number of promotional appearances) may have been weaker by comparison? I suppose it could have been the case that despite the radio support, the public and the fans just weren't feeling it... 🥺

On the Horizon actually had better radio support than any of these Spice related singles, released prior to it: Mama, (How Does It Feel to Be) On Top of the World, I Want You Back, Look at Me, Word Up, Goin' Down, It's Only Rock N Roll, Bag It Up, Tell Me, If That Were Me, Feels So Good, It's Raining Men, Lullaby, Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, Take My Breath Away, Not Such an Innocent Girl, Calling, We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight, A Mind of Its Own, Here It Comes Again and Free Me.

...yet On the Horizon sold considerably less than all of them! At the time of its release, it became the worst selling Spice related single to date, by quite a margin. It sold around 22k physically. Whereas the previous worst seller, Emma - We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight, sold 35k physically.

I imagine the label probably felt quite reassured by radio embracing On the Horizon, so how it performed - and how little it did for the album off the back of it - I can imagine it came as shock.

Sorry, this post is huge, but one more thing! There used to be a chart published by ChartsPlus, which compiled singles that hadn't been commercially released yet - pretty much their prediction of how well they were expected to do (and radio play definitely factored into their predictions). Prior to its release, they had On the Horizon at #1 in that chart! Yes, its radio play was stronger than Bring Me to Life to begin with. In brackets, is the position they'd actually go on to peak at in the official singles chart...

#1 Melanie C - On the Horizon (#14)

#2 Evanescence - Bring Me to Life (#1)
#3 Electric Six - Gay Bar (#5)
#4 Kings of Leon - What I Saw (#22)
#5 Shania Twain - Forever and For Always (#6)
#6 One True Voice - Shakespeare's Way With Words (#10)
#7 Ashley Hamilton - Wimmin (#27)
#8 iiO - At the End (#20)

Even Marilyn Manson's Mobscene managed to outchart On the Horizon - it went to #13, despite not being in the Radio Top 100 in the week before release.

On the Horizon is pretty fascinating to me, it definitely represents the moment that the wheels truly started to fall off for her career, sadly. Personally I think it deserved better than it got. I can also understand why it was chosen as a single, at least to me it seemed like the obvious choice for a second single when the album was new, so I wasn't surprised that it was picked. Sometimes I wonder how it would have done if it had been the first single, and got the glossy video treatment that Here It Comes Again had.

To me, ‘On The Horizon’ seems like a good song—it had everything to be a

hit. But I understand that with the bad press surrounding the girls, and especially Mel, who came off a liberating, rock, edgy album, this song just didn’t suit her at all. I see this song more for Emma than for her. ‘Reason’ reminds me a bit of Christina’s ‘Back To Basics’; both came from edgy, rock albums with varied styles and then suddenly they appear with albums talking about love, positivity, and more love, which loses all the previous audience.

On 14/03/2025 at 05:50, vibe said:

^ it was i checked the radio charts.

That's not what I was saying, I meant that I don't think it's that much of a shock when you consider everything else. Back then when an album had essentially bombed like that had, it's rare a subsequent single does the business to change its fortunes.

I think the main problem was her leaving it too long, she should've come back summer 2002 at the very latest (with probably a more eventful lead single)

The album went in at number 5.

It needed the second single to keep it in the charts.

In a copy of the Spice Girls' fan club magazine (which comes across like it is published very early in 2001), Melanie C said:

"I'll probably start writing in autumn (2001), so I'll be out of everyone's faces and locked up in the studio for a good 6-8 months. The album won't be out till autumn 2002ish".

Interesting that even in early 2001, she had it in mind that she wouldn't be releasing the second album until circa Sep-Nov 2002. As we know, the Reason era ended up being launched in January 2003 with the album released in March, so she was a few months behind on her initial plan. Ideally she would have been ready in 2002, entering 2003 just made it seem like she'd been gone for longer than she should have been, oddly.

It fell out of the top 100 after 5 weeks. There was no saving it I don't believe.

If On The Horizon had been sush a good song, it would have been a hit even after its release as a single. The song wasn't charismatic enough to excite the crowds.

Anyone bought the vinyl? I caved in and bought it as I looooove Wonderland and Home, and listening to those on vinyl was incredible today, so I am happy I did it.

It doesnt sound like it was re-mastered sadly, but it's good to have it nonetheless!

I bought it online. I am waiting to arrive. I still don't like the cover, I saw a few pics online posted by fans.

Living without you is a masterpiece

So listening to it again this morning, I find that some tracks have been wonderful to revisit indeed. Here It Comes Again, Reason, Water, Wonderland, Like That, Love To You, Home, Let's Love, On The Horizon are all stunning. The live version of Never Be The Same Again is gorgeous and a nice surprise as I had never heard it before.

Overall, the album has really grown on me with this vinyl!!

But the sound quality isn't great overall, im afraid. There are some very noticeable dips in sound quality such as in Do I, Living Without You, Like That and Going Down (Live) are particularly rough imo...

Should have been remastered, I believe...

(also she hasnt acknowleged the vinyl at all online? WILD to think she didnt even tweet or do an instagram story)

She did a Instagram story I think when it was announced.

Listening again to the album (and some b-sides) this morning, I find that the album has aged a bit better than I expected too. Not sure I will ever invest in this vinyl unless I can find it for cheap (lol, sorry Mel) but the temptation of hearing Wonderland in vinyl quality is tempting for sure! What a song!!!!

I think the era was so mishandled, it is quite sad. The singles were all wrong, and songs like Do I, Soul Boy and Lose Myself in You should have been replaced by Wonderland, Love You Without Trying and Love To You, for sure... Also, Yeh Yeh Yeh should have been called 'On a Mission' which is what was originally intended (as witnessed in promo cds!).

Singles-wise, I guess Here It Comes Again killed any momentum she might have had. It just didn't work at all as a single to launch the album with. It is so meandering and plodding along that never really goes anywhere, sadly. A different production maybe could have helped it, but even its lyrics sound a bit too generalistic for it to land. It is wild that she decided this was the main single!

I tend to agree now that Reason wouldn't have been a good single, in constrast to what Mel thinks. It's a great song, a great album track, but just like 'Better Alone', it is just that: a great album track. On The Horizon was the obvious 'radio hit' but by the time it got released, that sound had been done so much in mainstream pop that it fell flat...

Singles should have been, in my opinion:

1. On A Mission

2. Let's Love

3. Melt

4. Love You Without Trying (maybe a remix of this) / Love To You

And call it a day! Let's be honest it probably woudnt have done much better sales-wise, as we know that Solo Spice-releases were pretty much dead by this point but at least the campaign would have been a bit better overall lol

4 hours ago, Mr.X said:

Listening again to the album (and some b-sides) this morning, I find that the album has aged a bit better than I expected too. Not sure I will ever invest in this vinyl unless I can find it for cheap (lol, sorry Mel) but the temptation of hearing Wonderland in vinyl quality is tempting for sure! What a song!!!!

I think the era was so mishandled, it is quite sad. The singles were all wrong, and songs like Do I, Soul Boy and Lose Myself in You should have been replaced by Wonderland, Love You Without Trying and Love To You, for sure... Also, Yeh Yeh Yeh should have been called 'On a Mission' which is what was originally intended (as witnessed in promo cds!).

Singles-wise, I guess Here It Comes Again killed any momentum she might have had. It just didn't work at all as a single to launch the album with. It is so meandering and plodding along that never really goes anywhere, sadly. A different production maybe could have helped it, but even its lyrics sound a bit too generalistic for it to land. It is wild that she decided this was the main single!

I tend to agree now that Reason wouldn't have been a good single, in constrast to what Mel thinks. It's a great song, a great album track, but just like 'Better Alone', it is just that: a great album track. On The Horizon was the obvious 'radio hit' but by the time it got released, that sound had been done so much in mainstream pop that it fell flat...

Singles should have been, in my opinion:

1. On A Mission

2. Let's Love

3. Melt

4. Love You Without Trying (maybe a remix of this) / Love To You

And call it a day! Let's be honest it probably woudnt have done much better sales-wise, as we know that Solo Spice-releases were pretty much dead by this point but at least the campaign would have been a bit better overall lol

I'm inclined to agree with a lot of what you said, it's a frustrating era as I personally think the material was there for it to be a great album and a great era but it just got a little bit lost / was mishandled.

I love Here it comes again and can see why she thought it was a big comeback single, but, from the reception it received, clearly the general public did not agree. I would still use it as a launch single but a double a-side with Yeh, Yeh, Yeh perhaps would have worked better (I also think On a Mission would have been a better title too - actually would have been a cool album title potentially, although I do love Reason as an album title).

This is how I would have played out the era started with a rejigged tracklist (who honestly thought Soul Boy should go on the album it's one of the worst things she has recorded):

Reason tracklist:

1. Here it comes again

2. On a mission

3. On the horizon

4. Reason

5. I love you without trying

6. Let's love

7. Water

8. Living without you

9. Love to you

10. Knocked out

11. Home

12. Wonderland

(This leaves out Positively somewhere and Melt which are both incredible songs I love but would be awesome B-sides we would be saying should have been on the album tracklist instead).

Singles:

1. Here it comes again / On a mission

2. On the horizon

3. I love you without trying

4. Living without you (if there was option for a fourth single)

I know On the horizon was a big flop but I feel that was partly off the back of a previous unperforming single hopefully if the double a-side had been more successful the follow up would have been too.

I all honesty she very likely wouldn't have sold much more of the album either way, Scream and Free Me only sold 40 and 50k more copies off the back of much more successful singles promoting the albums. The album did quite well in comparison to get 100k sales and a Gold status off it's lack of single success, a better era would possibly have given it 20/30k extra sales, Spice Girls were basically yesterdays news by this point, Emma's era following up really proved that as it was pretty immaculate yet also only produced a gold selling album.

I'm not sure On The Horizon would have ever been successful, Im afraid... It was a type of sound that was a bit 'pass it' by the time it was released... Sure radio loved it, but it just didn't jell at all... It also didn't help that it sounded like a cheap copy of New Radicals song and that Ronan Keating song either...

But at the time, sales were generally quite low due to the fact that there was no-longer a big audience that would invest in Spice-related projects, as shown by Forever, Scream and a Girl Like Me, all failing to meet expectations. And I believe that Mel is a big reason for that too. The way the press was so anti-Spice was the main reason for sure, but also technically Mel C was the one who was against doing group-projects or even support most of the Forever campaign. Not only that, she was visibly and vocally against it. That only alienated more of the fans, as well as it probably pissed off Virgin Records a lot since the group was their main cash-cow at the time for 4 years! So the label probably didn't love her either after that...

It's genuinly a cocktails of reasons (lol) as to why Reason didn't succeed and it is sad...

I saw there were a couple of different versions sent out in promo CDs before the release in which some included Wonderland, which I think were probably better overall than what we got in the end. But it is WILD to me that Do I and Soul Boy were always in consideration. In fact, Melanie even performed those two songs live on the Reason tour in 2003 instead of one of her main masterpieces Home!

This one re-orders the tracklist and includes Wonderland, is probably my favourite: https://www.discogs.com/release/8413388-Melanie-C-Reason

And this one, which ommits Melt, changes the order of the tracklist.

https://www.discogs.com/release/8413393-Melanie-C-Reason

ANy of these would have been much better imo...

I bought the vinyl online waiting for it to be delivered! I wish i waited as paid a little more than i should have! Oh Well !!

I remember at the time when this album was released , i just didnt get it!! Itbtook a long while to hit! Now i love it!

Just lacked two killer singles with WW appeal unlike the first album!

Could anyone direct me to an American retailer, or one that ships to the US, selling the Reason vinyl online? I grabbed the NS vinyl at my local shop when it was released and would love to add this one to my collection.

9 minutes ago, Re-Hash said:

Could anyone direct me to an American retailer, or one that ships to the US, selling the Reason vinyl online? I grabbed the NS vinyl at my local shop when it was released and would love to add this one to my collection.

Rough Trade: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/melanie-c/reason-au

imusic: https://imusic.co/music/0602475369653/melanie-c-2025-reason-lp

Edited April 17Apr 17 by VampFan