Emma handing out an award to Madonna, iconic

You could tell Madonna was a bit taken by Emma, waving at her at first when arriving, giving her a big hug and even talking a bit with her before moving on to give her speech.

She knows Emma is not just a Spice Girl, she is a Spice Girl that also released Free Me which has been hugely influencial in Madonna's own career (in my dreams)

Madonna to collab with Emma next?

Emma looked so good 😊

She remembered who she was

Randomly, two What I Am remixes have been released on a new mix artists EP REVERSAL 002

These are the K-Warren Remix and the The Groove Chronicles Remixes, both of which have been released on the full What I Am EP (2024).

You can get them both here: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/reversal-002/6780516822

On 27/09/2026 at 12:46, Mr.X said:

Emma will be a presenter at the MTV VMAs this year, making it the first time since 1998 a Spice Girl was invited at all to the ceremony

Wild to think MTV USA really snubbed them post 1997! They should have been widely nominated in 1998 at the very least. They were massive.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddw8QIAxe5i/

It wss an industry wide thing. Money changed hands, ss record companies saw them and knew they could get in on it eith American bands, and made Destiny's Child and No Scrubs. They snubbed Spice Girls since thrn to build up American ones.

2 hours ago, Summer FRUITS!!!!! said:

It wss an industry wide thing. Money changed hands, ss record companies saw them and knew they could get in on it eith American bands, and made Destiny's Child and No Scrubs. They snubbed Spice Girls since thrn to build up American ones.

You are not wrong. Radios in the US started to boycott them around the Spice Up Your Life release date as they were seen as an act for children, and then when Simon was fired there was an industry shift against them. In the US, priority was definitely given to Destiny's Child and TLC when it comes to girlbands BUT ALSO to teen-pop acts like Britney, Christina and N*SINC... The US has always been very 'America-first'...

It's amazing how popular they still remained in 1998/1999 in the US, against this industry backlash though. And how they are still very popular today, they could still very easily sell out a massive tour over there and the GH sold like 1,5million copies there which is not bad at all

Still saddened me they couldn't push out Viva Forever release as the radios rejected them by then. This was the song that could have earned their credibility.

8 hours ago, Rebel said:

Still saddened me they couldn't push out Viva Forever release as the radios rejected them by then. This was the song that could have earned their credibility.

Yeah specially after Too Much and Stop, which are excellent songs and not necessarily songs "for children" or even Teen-Pop, and which had both been in the Top20 of Billboard and they were on a massive US tour in the summer...

wild..

Releasing Stop in the US perhaps wasn't the best approach for the era? Or at least they should have released it far sooner than they did and then made space for Viva Forever. I agree that Viva Forever could have given them more credibility in the US. At least, if radio had been supportive of it.

From January 97 to January 98 they were speedy with their single releases, but then they slowed right down... releasing Stop as late as June over there. With Geri having left just a couple of days before the CD release, that was pretty awkward timing!

Jan 97 - Wannabe

May 97 - Say You'll Be There

July 97 - 2 Become 1

Oct 97 - Spice Up Your Life

Jan 98 - Too Much

June 98 - Stop

Dec 98 - Goodbye

4th Feb 97 - Spice

4th Nov 97 - Spiceworld

Kind of crazy that from a US perspective, these albums were released in the same calendar year! Only 9 months apart.

I think the US needed some more breathing space with the 'Spice' era before moving on to 'Spiceworld'? I see the logic in targeting the Christmas market, but maybe it cost them some respect in the US music industry.

I read through some old billboard magazines online and they really received a lot of backlash releasing Spiceworld so soon after. "Spice up your life" was ignored by the radios when it debuted at 32. 2 become 1 was still in the chart and at a higher position! From 2 become 1 debuted at number 6, comparing to SUYL's debut.

So even with Simon then, he made the wrong decision for them to release in the US the same time with worldwide. I think that has to do with them getting snubbed by the Grammys too. And then they didn't release STOP right away (I guess they wanted to promote it while they were touring in the US) but still the album could have done a lot more in the US too.

5 hours ago, Rebel said:

I read through some old billboard magazines online and they really received a lot of backlash releasing Spiceworld so soon after. "Spice up your life" was ignored by the radios when it debuted at 32. 2 become 1 was still in the chart and at a higher position! From 2 become 1 debuted at number 6, comparing to SUYL's debut.

So even with Simon then, he made the wrong decision for them to release in the US the same time with worldwide. I think that has to do with them getting snubbed by the Grammys too. And then they didn't release STOP right away (I guess they wanted to promote it while they were touring in the US) but still the album could have done a lot more in the US too.

Yeah that release strategy was crazy! I never understood why Simon and the label agreed to it since the US market was so vastly different from the European one. They needed to promote there more, and could have easily waited a bit more and release the album in early 1998 in the US to coincide with the tour. That would have made much more sense and probably the radios and MTV wouldnt be so saturated by them.

Ultimately, this is Simon's fault. He overworked them and not only they got exahsuted, but the industry got exhausted as well.

And he wanted a tv show on top!!!!

Edited October 1Oct 1 by Summer FRUITS!!!!!

6 hours ago, Summer FRUITS!!!!! said:

And he wanted a tv show on top!!!!

Did he? I know the girls were talking with Richard Curtis (from Love Actually fame) to do a TV series with them in 1998 and also Disney to develop an animated film, both of which got cancelled /thrown away when Geri left...

That's a reason why S Club 7 had a TV series, that was a vision he had in mind for the Spice Girls!

6 minutes ago, -Jay- said:

That's a reason why S Club 7 had a TV series, that was a vision he had in mind for the Spice Girls!

and it was amazing

3 hours ago, Hima22 said:

and it was amazing

was it?? I remember that and, well..........

I'm glad the Spice Girls didn't do that in 1997, and instead a bit later on would have been fun to do with a proper team behind it. Richard Curtis would have been amazing.

Can you imagine Gerita's and Emma's acting though?....

It was amazing for S club 7 because of the guys they were funny

On 01/10/2026 at 13:12, Mr.X said:

Yeah that release strategy was crazy! I never understood why Simon and the label agreed to it since the US market was so vastly different from the European one. They needed to promote there more, and could have easily waited a bit more and release the album in early 1998 in the US to coincide with the tour. That would have made much more sense and probably the radios and MTV wouldnt be so saturated by them.

Ultimately, this is Simon's fault. He overworked them and not only they got exahsuted, but the industry got exhausted as well.

Yeah, pushing back the album release in the US would have been the wise move.

I've always had a curiosity about US radio/MTV abandoning the Spices in late '97/98. As a kid, I was paying attention to charts...and at the time, I thought it was the weirdest thing that a group with two albums in the top ten simultaneously just couldn't get radio play.

Of course, I don't know exactly what happened behind the scenes with radio/MTV. The theory that they were partial to homegrown acts is very valid. The oversaturation theory is too...though I'd argue that as big as the Spices were, they never got the push here that Britney, NSYNC, and the Backstreet Boys did.

I'll float out another theory.

Even though 1997 belonged to the Spice Girls...the Spiceworld album arrived here quietly. You think about it. Spice was still having a successful album cycle in the US. The Spices didn't have a single US performance of Spice Up Your Life ahead of the release (to my memory, those came in December and January). Not all fans would have had internet access at that time. For many...Spiceworld kinda just...showed up one day. I think a lot of people in MTV/radio may have seen that #8 chart placement and thought..."they're fading fast".

Anyway. The album went on to be super successful and had a long chart run because the Spice World movie and its commercials/trailers really got it known that...a second album does exist. But had they timed Spice Up Your Life, the Spiceworld album, and Spice World film as one big early '98 push, they would have landed a second US #1 album.