Yes releasing during the Christmas period was crazy, she should have just waited for the new year. STILL at the time, we cannot know if she would have faired any better, since solo Spice-projects were not supported at all and mostly failed to sell (as you just proved). It probably did help that it was during Christmas and targetted at mums and grannies who watched Strictly as it might have gotten a few more thousand sales than it would have otherwise...

 

I am not sure comparing it to Geri's or Mel C's albums of the same time, both of which flopped without much mainstream support, is worth it though. Emma had the BBC, Children in Need and a major labor backig it and still flopped...

#34 Lay Your Love On Me

 

From album: Free Me

Release Year: 2004

Average votes: 6,92

 

 

Free Me's first album track is OUT OUT and it is the Cathy Dennis co-penned 'Lay Your Love On Me'. A fun, sexy though quite quirky track about banging ( :teresa: ) it is a retro type of track that takes us right back to the 60s motown sound. It includes gorgeous production by Cathy herself (who also provided backing vocals!), with those hand-claps and the piano blending in super nicely!

 

Emma sounds gorgeous in it as well and I could see it being really fun live! Hopefully she will one day revive it :teresa:

 

What do you think? Is this really Emma's worst track on Free Me?????

 

#33 High On Love

 

From album: A Girl Like Me

Release Year: 2001

Average votes: 6,96

 

 

High On Love is Emma's sweet, guitar-pop second-favourite album track from A Girl Like Me in this forum! Another Biff & Julian production, it is a breezy number that goes really well in the opening section of the album.

 

Emma dedicated this song to her Mum in the album sleeves, and it is a firm fan-favourite on the album, with some even suggesting it should have been a single in 2002, had the album found more success. It certainly would have been a better suited option after What Took You So Long and Take My Breath Away, but alas...

 

It is also one of the few album tracks Emma has ever performed live, when she did it at the MGM Café in Paris during the album launch promotion in 2001:

 

 

#32 Don't Call Me Baby

 

From album: My Happy Place

Release year: 2019

Average votes: 7,03

 

 

When BabyBunton decided to release an album full of covers, there was one cover that was tauted throughout as being a highlight: Don't Call Me Baby. The original by Maddison Avenue was a huge hit in the late 90s/early 2000s and Emma has often referenced it as a song she wished she had done as it fitted well with her BabySpice persona.

 

Whilst not technically a single from the album, the song was performed live on BBCRadio 2 as part of the promo campaign (see blow). It is also one of the few covers she has done where the production kind of takes the song into a different areas/genre from the original, making it more retro-sounding and in tune with Emma's sound. This is where Emma succeeds in her covers, whereas the ones where it is mostly a carbon copy of the original, usually don't really gel with Emma's audience.

 

Do you think Emma should have released Don't Call Me Baby as a single back in 2019? She seemed to hint at it being a favourite...

 

And would have High On Love succeed as a single to save the album back in 2001/2002??

The more I hear Don't call me baby, the less I like her version of it! Otherwise a pretty strong round there.

 

High on love is stunning.

Edited November 28, 2024Nov 28 by spiceboy

Forgot to vote in this 🙈

 

Were Not Gonna Sleep Tonight is actually my fave ever Emma song, I’m very much in the minority

Forgot to vote in this 🙈

 

Were Not Gonna Sleep Tonight is actually my fave ever Emma song, I’m very much in the minority

 

Glad you forgot to vote then... :lol:

Glad you forgot to vote then... :lol:

 

 

It would have got an 11 :lol:

Forgot to vote in this 🙈

 

Were Not Gonna Sleep Tonight is actually my fave ever Emma song, I’m very much in the minority

 

OMG :teresa: Would that have been the single or album version?

#31 I Only Want To Be With You (featuring Will Young)

 

From album: My Happy Place

Release year: 2019

Average votes: 7,04

 

 

Emma and Will Young have been close friends since both were under Simon Fullers now defunct record label, 19 Records back in 2003 - 2008, having shared stages, attended parties together and even participated together in a celebrity-episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2003 raising thousands:

 

 

So naturally when it came to make yet another cover for her My Happy Place, Emma invited her friend to collaborate and sing together. It is one of the better received covers of the album overall, with their voices blending in together beautifully. The production, whilst muted, is very generous to the song as well.

 

The song was originally released as the debut single from iconic British music legend Dusty Springfield in 1964. Emma and Will Young have performed it only once, on Emma's now infamous Albert Hall show in 2019, which you can see below.

 

Overall Rate Results so far:

 

31. I Only Want To Be With You (featuring Will Young)

32. Don't Call Me Baby

33. High On Love

34. Lay Your Love On Me

35. Something Tells Me (Something's Gonna Happen Tonight)

36. You're All I Need To Get By (featuring Jade Jones)

37. Eso Beso

38. Maybe (Latino Mix)

39. Midnights & Martinis

40. Better Be Careful

41. We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight (album version)

42. Sunshine on a Rainy Day

43. Takin' It Easy

44. A Girl Like Me

45. Por Favor

46. Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps

47. So Nice (Summer Samba)

48. We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight (single mix)

48. Been There, Done That

50. Santa Baby

51. Emotion

52. Coming Home For Christmas

53. Come Away With Me (featuring Josh Kumra)

54. Spell it OUT

55. Free Up Your Mind

56. Don't Tell Me You Love Me Anymore

57. She Was a Friend of Mine

58. I Know Him So Well

59. Invincible

60. Close Encounter

61. I Don't Know (Emma features on Damage's single)

62. Let Your Baby Show You How to Move

63. Here Comes The Sun

64. Merry Go-Round

65. 2 Become 1 (featuring Robbie Williams)

66. Sometimes (Chicken Shed charity album, 2002)

67. Greatest Day (England's 2014 Official World Cup Song, also including Melanie C)

 

Still in competition:

 

Singles: 11

Album tracks: 19

 

Free Me songs: 11

Life in Mono songs: 11

A Girl Like Me songs: 4

My Happy Place songs: 3

B-sides: 1

Edited November 30, 2024Nov 30 by Mr.X

OMG :teresa: Would that have been the single or album version?

 

Album version

Album version

 

wow that would have made it go into the Top35 for sure :teresa:

#31 I Only Want To Be With You (featuring Will Young)

 

From album: My Happy Place

Release year: 2019

Average votes: 7,04

 

 

Emma and Will Young have been close friends since both were under Simon Fullers now defunct record label, 19 Records back in 2003 - 2008, having shared stages, attended parties together and even participated together in a celebrity-episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2003 raising thousands:

 

 

So naturally when it came to make yet another cover for her My Happy Place, Emma invited her friend to collaborate and sing together. It is one of the better received covers of the album overall, with their voices blending in together beautifully. The production, whilst muted, is very generous to the song as well.

 

The song was originally released as the debut single from iconic British music legend Dusty Springfield in 1964. Emma and Will Young have performed it only once, on Emma's now infamous Albert Hall show in 2019, which you can see below.

 

 

I think they also performed a live version of it on radio 2 during release week of the album.

 

I have a real soft spot for this, they both sound gorgeous on it.🥰

 

And would have High On Love succeed as a single to save the album back in 2001/2002??

 

I figure it would have performed better than We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight...but also, I don't think anything else on the album commanded attention like What Took You So Long. Personally, I would have released both High On Love AND Better Be Careful as singles off the album. For me...Richard Stannard's three tracks on A Girl Like Me just had the best grasp of what Emma's sound should be in 2001. The album's kinda at an unusual place where half the album has this maturity...and the other half sounds younger than the Spice Girls releases from five years earlier (generally).

 

My memory is that Emma called High On Love her favorite song off the album, so that's part of why I was expecting it to get released. Then A World Without You was a fan favorite...and reviewers had kinda been buzzing around Sunshine On A Rainy Day. All of it led to the feeling of We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight being a random pick. I'd probably consider it the album's...8th strongest track? Not ideal for a single.

 

Reverting to an earlier conversation...I will say. I get the logic of releasing We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight. There's a touch of Spice Girls nostalgia...choreography the fans can do alongside Emma. Geri had major success with a Latin-tinged song...Mel C had major success with a heavily remixed single version of one of her tracks. Beyond all that, the singles of the Spice Girls and solo Spice albums to that point tended to showcase the various sides of the artist. My guess is if Take My Breath Away had been as big a hit as What Took You So Long, we would have seen a more expected song as a single...as opposed to the intended shake-up of We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight.

I totally get the argument that they needed to showcase another side to the album outside of its guitar-pop image that What Took You So Long and Take My Breath Away showed. But they could have gone with a sound that was closer to the actual album's varied sounds rather than what this ended up being...

 

Anyway, it was Bunton's first big mistake, sadly... It really derailed her career...

#30 A World Without You

 

From album: A Girl Like Me

Release year: 2001

Average votes: 7,07

 

 

Opening the Top30 is perhaps the biggest 'what if' of the A Girl Like Me era. This bittersweet era gave us some of Bunton's highest highs but also some of her lowest, lets be honest...

 

Tauted as 'the Christmas single that got away', everyone kind of expected Emma to release this when it became clear she was going for the Christmas market appeal, though sadly she chose to go with the maligned remix of We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight instead and killed her solo music momentum :blink: Written by Emma with iconic producers Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers (of Boyzone fame!), this is Emma's first big attempt at a big ballad and it screams 'single' big time.

 

It was met with good reviews overall at the time of the album's release, mentioned by various publications as a stand out track. Emma performed it various time during the album's promo cycle (even mentioning it as a 'Christmasy-song' during some appearances. It certainly seemed like a sure fire single that built on the pop-acoustic sounds of the first few singles. Alas, it was not meant to be.

 

It is A Girl Like Me's highest placing album track on this rate! Do you think it is justified? :blink:

 

'A World Without You' SHOULD have been the X-Mas single for 2001, could have easily gone top 5/10, especially with the radio edit version. It could have easily pushed a few more album sales and kept the momentum going into the new year. Then have 'High On Love' as the final single to close out the era & maybe hell the album earn a Platinum certification.

 

This would have been the perfect era if it had gone like planned

 

April '01: What Took You So Long

Aug '01: Take My Breath Away

Dec '01: A World Without You

Mar '02: High On Love

How is this beautiful song only at 30 ?

A World Without You is cute :heart:

'A World Without You' SHOULD have been the X-Mas single for 2001, could have easily gone top 5/10, especially with the radio edit version. It could have easily pushed a few more album sales and kept the momentum going into the new year. Then have 'High On Love' as the final single to close out the era & maybe hell the album earn a Platinum certification.

 

This would have been the perfect era if it had gone like planned

 

April '01: What Took You So Long

Aug '01: Take My Breath Away

Dec '01: A World Without You

Mar '02: High On Love

 

That really would have been the best possible scenario in my opinion, and probably be a more successful era :teresa: