ByJonah

Such a fascinating question! Personally, I would have loved for things to happen like this October 2000: Holler November 2000: Forever album release December 2000: Oxygen (The 4th Christmas number one) March 2001: Tell Me Why + the Forever Tour across the UK, Europe and the US July 2001: If You Wanna Have Some Fun / Let Love Lead the Way as a double A-side single November 2001: End of the Forever Tour + Greatest Hits album And then each of the girls could have started her solo career. I think that would have been the perfect way to end the Forever era! When it comes to Forever not being as successful, I honestly don't think it had anything to do with the quality of the album. I think it's a really good R&B album and very well produced. I also don't believe people had lost interest in the Spice Girls. Holler / Let Love Lead the Way reached number one and Forever peaked at number two, so I wouldn't exactly call that a failure! I think the real problem was the group itself. They barely promoted the album, and you could tell their hearts just weren't really in it anymore. I think Melanie C was probably a bit more responsible for that, although I completely understand what she was going through at the time. Her solo career was doing really well, but she was also struggling with depression and eating disorders. She clearly wasn't as invested in the group anymore. I still believe that with proper promotion and a tour, Forever could have been much more successful. Maybe not as successful as Spice or Spiceworld, but I definitely think it could have done a lot better and reached a much bigger audience.

Simply because they have an incompetent team, and the girls themselves don’t take the time to look after their heritage. Look at their Instagram account, it’s so depressing. I prefer fan accounts like SpiceGirlsNet a thousand times over, they celebrate the girls’ career much better. The official account is always the same thing, stories of people dancing to Wannabe, as if Wannabe was the only song in their discography.

Even the box set cover is really boring and lacks color. It would’ve made so much more sense to use the iconic colors in each letter, matching each Spice Girl. So I had a bit of fun making my own little collector’s edition version, the way I would’ve imagined it.

I think their label and their team should have focused only on the first album. A proper Spice30 deluxe, with vinyl + CD box sets. Put the original album on vinyl/CD1, then a vinyl/CD2 with the demos of the ten Spice tracks, from Wannabe to If U Can’t Dance. After that, a vinyl/CD3 with all the unreleased songs: Feed Your Love, Perfect Vision, Strong Enough, Do You Think About Me, Sugar & Spice, Melody of Life, Don’t Break My Heart, C U Next Tuesday and Don’t Wanna Be. And then the vinyls/CDs of the five singles, with the B-sides, remixes and alternative versions. I would also have included the rap version of Say You’ll Be There and the film version. It would have been smart of them to remaster One Hour of Girl Power and put it on their YouTube channel. The following year they could do the exact same thing for Spiceworld: the film remastered for streaming on Netflix and on Blu-ray, and upload the 4K concerts on YouTube the full Istanbul show and Wembley 1998. And for Forever, we all know there’s more than enough to put something really good together too.

01: Baby Spice Melanie C

Free Me is truly her best album, it’s time to have it on vinyl!!

Anyway, it’s such a shame it’s not the original cover. The artwork is so iconic. Hotter should have been a single, it’s probably the song from Hot that could have saved the album.

I hope she recovers quickly and that it will truly be beneficial for her.

I’m sure Free Me and Life In Mono will be released on vinyl at some point, but I guess we’ll have to wait years before getting them… just like back when we had to wait years for the albums to finally arrive on streaming platforms…😅

I still can’t believe it’s already been 25 years since Emma’s first solo album came out. I remember going to the store with my parents to buy it like it was yesterday. Looking back, it’s honestly such a solid pop album really fresh and full of great moments. I’ve always thought What Took You So Long was an amazing pop song, seriously underrated. Over time, I’ve also come to appreciate Take My Breath Away a lot more I didn’t fully get it at first, but it really grew on me. And I’ve always loved We’re Not Gonna Sleep Tonight, it’s such a great final single. Overall, I feel like the album never got the recognition it deserved. It’s nice to see that Emma herself still acknowledges it today and talks about it with real affection. PS : A Girl Like Me should have been a single