Sooo....

This is a topic about the potential next singles from Forever and which ones we think should have been pushed as 3rd, 4th & 5th singles (YES LET'S GO!!).

As we know, promo CDs were produced for Tell Me Why, If You Wanna Have Some Fun and Weekend Love suggesting that there were either the next singles or promo tracks to spread on radio.

Out of these, we know that Tell Me Why was most probably going to be the next single, as various remixes were comissioned (including a radio edit) and various promo CDs and Vinyls were created, and it is now being treated as 'single' for the upcoming The Singles Collection, with all mixes included.

For If You Wanna Have Some Fun, a radio edit was created and even a promo-only video montage was sent to MTV. It is also being included in the Tell Me Why EP (both on CD and Vinyl) that is coming in the Singles Collection, again pointing towards it potentially being a planned single as well.

God only knows about Weekend Love though... for all we know, that could have just been a promo CD with no intention to release.

Out of these, what do you think should have been the next single, post Holler/LLLTW?

Or would you have picked another track to go with?...

And what would be your prefered next few singles - and in what order?

My picks:

Tell Me Why - March 2001

Oxygen - May 2001

If You Wanna Have Some Fun - July 2001

My single choices would have been

Holler - Oct 2000

If You Wanna Have Some Fun - Jan 2001

Weekend Love (Single Version without the rap) - April 2001

Tell Me Why (Thunderpuss Remix) - July 2001

Aug through Nov 2001 - UK/European Leg of the tour

Jan & Feb 2002 - USA & Canada leg of the tour

Weekend Love is the most radio friendly ballad on the album. LLLTW would probably scrap the top 5 if it was a stand alone single. I even prefer Oxygen as a single over LLLTW.

Being realistic, we were never going to get a full on era from Forever. Having the first single be a double A side was very telling in hindsight.

7 minutes ago, Sideout said:

Being realistic, we were never going to get a full on era from Forever. Having the first single be a double A side was very telling in hindsight.

I do think that there was kind of no-point releasing LLLTW alongside Holler, and it showed they probably weren't so sure that just one song would do. Holler would have smashed on its own though, had they really focused.

Agree with your assessment that LLLTW would have 'only' gone Top5, and also I think had they continued with the era, maybe they could have gotten to #1 with at least one more single, but any further would have landed in the Top5/Top10. Of course, nothing wrong with that, a Top10 in your 3rd album is a marker of success lol

While I love the Thunderpuss remixes, I don't think the Radio Mix would have been a single... maybe just a promo? It sounds too much like a club mix to be sent to pop radios. It worked for Madonna's What It Feels Like For a Girl, but I am not sure the label wanted that for the band, it would have been tooooo 'cool' for the Spice Girls after going R&B.

Holler a single on its own.

LLLTW And IYWHSF for xmas!

IYWHSF remixed and edited.

TMW

The only possible singles!

I watched the BTS of Making MV of Holler recently. I feel it was Mel C was the one who convinced the other three to tag LLLTW with Holler so they would just drop one single and focused with just one promotion! She was slyly hinted that fans would hear two different songs and also they didn’t have to plan the next single right away. Except the song ended up getting ignored mostly and people just focused on Holler.

I don’t remember how much radio airplay Holler or LLLTW got, but I remember Jay posting something along the lines of LLLTW didn’t even crack the top 50 on UK radio. The group can claim it was a #1 single but I bet most casual fans and the general public don’t really have much nostalgia for the song since Holler got all the attention.

My ideal follow up singles would be :

January 2001 - Tell Me Why (remixed version) - to get that slow January sale so they could possibly score another number one

March 2001 - If you wanna have some fun (radios edit) - they could show up at the Brits awards to perform and promote the single (I’m sure the Brits love having them).

June 2001 - Get Down With Me (new dance remix) / W.O.M.A.N. - yes that’s right! Releasing a new remix and add W.O.M.A.N. because they would be re-releasing Forever (More) to get people to buy it again!

The re-release will include all the remixes plus the early pop session tracks! During that time, I t was all about re-releasing the album so fans can double dib over and over again. With the poppy W.O.M.A.N., it would help bring back some of the pop fans!

The whole Forever era doesn’t make much sense. They pushed back the release of the album an entire year to record 4 more songs in 2000. They recorded 14 songs between August and September 1999.

1. Right Back At Ya

2. Holler

3. Let Love Lead The Way

4. If You Wanna Have Some Fun

5. Weekend Love

6. Oxygen

10. Goodbye

So you’re telling me none of the remaining 8 pop songs were good enough to fill the remaining 3 slots? Just seems very odd to me.

Behind the scenes Mel C was probably like, “Heck yeah! Let’s delay the album and record more tracks so I can release my solo album instead.”

2 hours ago, Sideout said:

The whole Forever era doesn’t make much sense. They pushed back the release of the album an entire year to record 4 more songs in 2000. They recorded 14 songs between August and September 1999.

1. Right Back At Ya

2. Holler

3. Let Love Lead The Way

4. If You Wanna Have Some Fun

5. Weekend Love

6. Oxygen

10. Goodbye

So you’re telling me none of the remaining 8 pop songs were good enough to fill the remaining 3 slots? Just seems very odd to me.

Behind the scenes Mel C was probably like, “Heck yeah! Let’s delay the album and record more tracks so I can release my solo album instead.”

Well, yes the album was first delayed to accommodate the pregnancies, then to accommodate Northern Star's release and once that decision was made, they had to 'move directions'... In the meantime, Mel C went on to finally find success which sealed the faith of everyone's careers lol...

I still think an early 2000 album release with those songs + WOMAN + a couple more, would have been an incredibly mixed and well received album... but they were probably aiming at the Christmas market again, as they always did with their releases, but this time it backfired..

Anyway, yes it was Mel C's fault lol...

I agree, Mel C put herself before the group. She’s not any better than Geri. Melanie may as well have announced her departure from the group on Northern Star’s release date.

There’s really no reason why the 3rd album couldn’t have been released in February or March 2000. That would have given the group enough time to update/modify 3 or 4 of the pop songs to fit the album.

I would love to know the thought process with the Virgin Records executives. I’m surprised they allowed Melanie C to release her album before the 3rd group album. Then again these same executives allowed Mel B to release her solo album weeks before Forever.

Part of me believes they wanted the solo albums to fail. The group would make the record label more money than as individual solo artists. I bet they never expected Northern Star to be as successful as it was.

6 minutes ago, Sideout said:

I agree, Mel C put herself before the group. She’s not any better than Geri. Melanie may as well have announced her departure from the group on Northern Star’s release date.

There’s really no reason why the 3rd album couldn’t have been released in February or March 2000. That would have given the group enough time to update/modify 3 or 4 of the pop songs to fit the album.

I would love to know the thought process with the Virgin Records executives. I’m surprised they allowed Melanie C to release her album before the 3rd group album. Then again these same executives allowed Mel B to release her solo album weeks before Forever.

Part of me believes they wanted the solo albums to fail. The group would make the record label more money than as individual solo artists. I bet they never expected Northern Star to be as successful as it was.

It was a f***ing mess, really... both Mels really damaged the group around that time, with their solo work. Only Emma and Victoria seemed fully committed and waited before going on their solo album campaigns.

I don't think Virgin was expecting the solo albums to fail, quite the contrary. They poured a lot of money into them (VB is still one of the most expensive albums of the 2000s to this date lol) and the promotions were extensive all around. They wanted to recoup the money and make profits.

I just think that Virgin wasn't expecting the girls themselves to let go of the group in the way they did. Once that became clear, Virgin was probably pissed at them for trashing the Forever campaign and flopping the album because of the solo works. Once the solos in 2001 didn't exactly deliver album sales like NS or even Schizo, then they let them go quickly. Mel C talked about how the label wasnt even picking up the phone to her during the Reason era lol

(I would be pissed at them too lol)

Virgin Records probably didn’t mind spending a decent amount of money on their debut solo albums in the hopes that one of them became the next Robbie Williams.

I agree with your assessment Mr.X. When it was obvious the girls were never going to record another group album again, they dropped them immediately when their solo material started to under perform.

Virgin Records were probably hoping the group would get back together in late 2004 for a 2005 comeback album. By then all of their solo careers were pretty much in the toilet.

Fans like to rave about the success of Free Me. If you look at the sales of the singles and the album, it was a moderate success at best. Emma didn’t even go on tour because her team didn’t think there would be enough interest.

18 minutes ago, Sideout said:

Virgin Records were probably hoping the group would get back together in late 2004 for a 2005 comeback album. By then all of their solo careers were pretty much in the toilet.

I don't think so. By then, all of them were out of contract with Virgin after flopping and Mel C was very much 'NO SPICE MUSIC EVER AGAIN' since November 2000, and she didn't even consider saying anything nice about the band until the Live Aid conversation started - and even then she was adamant no more music.

It's sad cos both Mel C and Geri really did damage the band so much between over the years... just pure egos getting in the way.

21 minutes ago, Sideout said:

Fans like to rave about the success of Free Me. If you look at the sales of the singles and the album, it was a moderate success at best. Emma didn’t even go on tour because her team didn’t think there would be enough interest.

What is this blasphemY??!?!??!!

Free Me did good. Remember that back in 2003-2006 sales were pretty low overall for everyone due to Napster and the online resurgence of free music downloads. "Maybe" was a success, it's original 80k sales would be equivalent or near what What Took You So Long a few years back, or at least What I Am. The rest of the singles did just ok (and Crickets properly flopped lol).

Free Me the album was well received, sold ok and was the best critically aclaimed since NS, and she could have done a theatre tour around then, and do a few festivals, to start building a touring base. No, it wasn't NS levels of success but it was seen at the time to be a good grounding for a longer career.

Sadly, she then took another 3 years before she did anything else and that disastrous Strickly Come Dancing stint that imo just really moved her away from a serious career.

Honestly, Maybe and Free Me the album could have done a whole lot better if they had released two CD versions of Maybe (like, I’m so perplexed why they went just one single for this particular single out of four singles) and the album soon after Maybe. The album didn’t have much leg left when they didn’t release anything after Crickets.

I think the whole Forever mess was a continued mess after sacking Simon Fuller and never really got a manager to replace him.

Remember, they each all had a defined role to handle different parts of business (like Mel B handled touring). Guess who was handling the record company. It was Mel C. By the time, she finished Northern Star, she was already mentally not feeling it anymore so her focus shifted completely. She did her part in setting up all the producers for August and November recording sessions but after that they didn’t get back to the studio with Darkchild until next April. I mean, he’s a busy producer but this was the spice girls, if they had pressed him that they wanted to finish the album they could have done so much earlier. By April, Mel C also didn’t show up and I think this is when Victoria (and the others) started to realize (she wrote in her book) that Mel C’s heart not in it anymore. Like they recorded three underwhelmed tracks in April and one more in July. And none of those tracks were that good but they just pressed on and said these would do.

23 minutes ago, Rebel said:

Honestly, Maybe and Free Me the album could have done a whole lot better if they had released two CD versions of Maybe (like, I’m so perplexed why they went just one single for this particular single out of four singles) and the album soon after Maybe. The album didn’t have much leg left when they didn’t release anything after Crickets.

Truth nukes!!! Also Emma went on a 3 week holiday the week after the album was released LOL Crickets might have flopped but it did help the album back in the charts at least

20 minutes ago, Rebel said:

I think the whole Forever mess was a continued mess after sacking Simon Fuller and never really got a manager to replace him.

Remember, they each all had a defined role to handle different parts of business (like Mel B handled touring). Guess who was handling the record company. It was Mel C.

They did have Nancy as a manager. They just liked to run with the whole 'we manage ourselves' for the narrative of "we're taking ownership of our own careers, no man needed! we are a group and we do it ourselves!" It was a bit overblown by them...

I do love your approach for a Forever (More) delux with WOMAN and a more pop approach. That could have been cute in 2001 although I think they would have really betrayed their relationship with Darkchild lol the guy would not have been happy at all!

Well, Nancy was more of like a glorified PA to them I feel. She just followed their orders but not really taking charge. Because in what world could they leave out 8 months to complete the third album in between. That’s not a good manager, hell, that’s not what a manager does at all!

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by Rebel