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Thank you for this link. So It seems the girls did sign some sort of contract with Universal then. Good to know. Hopefully Universal does a better job in the future because these anniversary editions are not doing as well as other artists.

Does Universal get any of their merch sales? As far as I know the girls do not have a recording contract with them. Universal only holds the distribution rights to their catalogue. Universal wouldn't be entitled to a percentage of their merchandise sales unless the girls agreed to give them some.

George Michael's reissue of Older a few weeks earlier sold 12,652 vinyls. That really shows how low SW 25's vinyl numbers truly are.

If you have to include merch to justify making a profit...... The girls can sell merch without an anniversary release. My main point is the UK is the biggest market for the girls. If that's all they did in the UK, I doubt sales from other countries are that high. Universal ain't in the business to break even or make a very small profit.

1,603 vinyls sold at £30 each = £48,090. For Americans that equals $57,462. There were 4 women hired to manage SW 25. No doubt that means Universal made zero profit on SW 25 after paying the team and printing costs.

Thanks for the info Jay. Always appreciate your sales posts.

In hindsight it's too bad Biff didn't repurpose some of the tracks he did with Victoria for the greatest hits. Imagine if we would have got some of these on the greatest hits. Hustler Flow Give It All Away Be With You Bittersweet Should've Known Better All of these tracks are great. They feel mature and "cool" compared to Headlines and Voodoo.

A Never Give Up On The Good Times remix should have been the greatest hits single. It probably would have went top 5. It would have added another legitimate hit single to their legacy. Instead we got Headlines, which no one remembers or cares for.

This is a interesting point to bring up. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. The girls probably don't even know the Universal team used low quality live tracks. Someone should mention this to Mel C. Her reaction will be very telling.

SW 25 got what it deserved. One of the worst anniversary editions of an album that I've seen. Not paying the original photographers for HQ scans and using live tracks ripped from YouTube is embarrassing. Forever 25 will probably be just as bad. If Universal and the girls didn't put any effort into SW 25, why would they course correct with their least celebrated album. They will probably just release Woman and that's it. I don't see them releasing many of the pop songs from Forever.

Even most of the Spice 25 numbers after an entire year are abysmal.

Enemy, Drown, Weak, Burn and the b-side Cruel Intentions are highlights

I'm not surprised if the girls are not a high priority at Universal. They are a legacy act that hasn't released an album in 22 years. Not to mention it seems like the girls themselves don't want certain demos and outtakes released. Why would Universal spend much money or time on half baked anniversary editions?

I could see them releasing a 25th anniversary vinyl of Goodbye with Woman on it. That way Woman gets officially released without having to celebrate Forever.

They shouldn't have released a SW 25 if there's nothing of value in the archives. Hopefully the underperformance of this release will force them to put more effort into Forever 25. Though I suspect there won't be an anniversary edition of that album for multiple reasons.

So this party mix is just previously released remixes strung together. Yeah, this sums up these anniversary editions. Strung together cash grabs.

Step To Me should have been on the greatest hits album in 2007. Praising the girls and their team for making the song widely available 15 years later is a joke. I brought up George Michael's reissue of Older because it went to #2 without multiple vinyl covers and a CD release. Fans bought it because it included everything from that era in beautiful packaging. Spice 25 would have charted much lower without its multiple vinyl covers. Spice 25 could have been much, much bigger.

You're not being critical enough. You're grasping for nice things to say about SW 25. Praising the girls and their team for uploading a HQ scan of the SW album cover to Spotify is laughable. George Michael's reissue of Older went to #2 in the UK. That's without multiple vinyl covers and a CD release.

Imagine if the Prince or Whitney Houston estate shortened live tracks on Spotify to appeal to gen z. Talk about having no musical integrity. What a joke.

Releasing a live version of a song, but cutting the intro is idiotic. Live versions of songs appeal to hard core fans. Trying to have a live version of a song appeal to the masses by shortening it is absurd.

Love this post. Put a huge smile on my face.

This is an excellent point. Virgin Records and the girls were naive to think they would get top tier songs from Darkchild in 2000. If Virgin Records wanted the girls to release a R&B album, I'm sure Kennedy and Biff could have changed some of their production to accommodate that.

OMG. How awful. Hearing Willa Ford's studio version of the track makes things worse. I feel so bad for Victoria. Having a Willa Ford reject as your lead single is embarrassing. Not to mention both versions of the track sound identical. Virgin Records did Victoria so dirty. #JusticeForVB

The girls are kind of in a pickle. A large bulk of their unreleased material is from Forever. An album that is not celebrated by most fans and the general public. Not to mention the girls themselves don't seem to be fond of it. If the Forever pop songs are decent, it seems like a waste to release these songs on an anniversary edition of Forever. Releasing the best of these pop songs on a rarities album or anthology box set would be more ideal. The unreleased tracks from Forever don't even sound like outtakes from that album.

The official radio edit of IYWHSF is much better than the album version. Hopefully they include it on Forever 25.