-Jay-

01 Vengaboys - We Like to Party! (The Vengabus) [fave] 02 Sade - The Sweetest Taboo 03 Years & Years - Take Shelter 04 Bananarama - Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) 05 Texas - When We Are Together 06 M83 feat. Susanne Sundfør - Oblivion 07 iamamiwhoami - play 08 Ultravox - Sleepwalk 09 Depeche Mode - See You 10 Fontaines D.C. - A Lucid Dream 11 New Order - Ruined in a Day 12 Dead or Alive - Misty Circles

Those estimates were as of 28th August by the way, 3 weeks have passed since then so it’ll have added thousands of sales since then 3,015,000 was very likely an underestimate for that date though. I guess it was nearer 3,020,000 at that point! Wannabe certified 5xPlat on 31st July, while its 3,032,623 total is from 7 weeks later. If it was assumed that Wannabe’s total was bang on 3,000,000 when certified, then its average sales per week since then would be 4,660. However, we don’t know Wannabe’s actual total that week. For all we know it could have sold 2,999,999 by 24th July and then achieved its certification with a total of say 3,004,000 on 31st July. Which would make the weekly average sales 4,090 instead! If 4,660 is true, then Wannabe’s total on 28th Aug would have been around 3,018,000. If 4,090 is true, then its 28th Aug total would have been 3,020,000. We really need a FULL update! And the singles box announcement was a perfect opportunity for that, Official Charts Company!!

The UK boy band dearALICE is releasing a new EP next Friday! (25th September). It includes the singles Body On, Home With You and their latest release Animal (some of you might be interested to know that Animal is produced by Shift K3y). They're bangers! Please give my underrated kings a chance x The Animal music video is coming on 25th September as well!

I quite liked She’s the Best actually but I’m unsure about this one… I’ll give it some time x

I kind of wish that Viva Forever's CD & 7" track lists had included Never Give Up on the Good Times as its pseudo B Side, as a nod to it originally being intended as a Double A Side single! I would have preferred that over the inclusion of the Tony Rich remix on the vinyl tbh. Plus it's obviously such a gem in their catalogue - I think it deserved an inclusion in the box sets, alongside Step to Me/Move Over/Tell Me Why/If You Wanna Have Some Fun as non-singles. Plus it's their most streamed album track.

I'm obsessed with this

Glad to see they're doing this, this is what makes an anniversary celebration interesting Looking forward to seeing more!

Maybe something more along these lines? With different pictures of the girls in the letters rather than the 'Spice' album images to make it more unique!

Yeah I agree that the mailer teaser was ultimately ill-advised, for the furore it has ultimately caused! I also agree that they probably should have just announced the box sets out of the blue, with full details, the day before making the pre-orders go live. Then no one would have had room to be confused and they could have just been like "meh, this is not for me" and move on, rather than get upset that it wasn't what they thought it was going to be (a tour). I think that the image used in the mailer was cute for the fans who know stuff about Spice Girls lore (i.e. it being a recreation of an ad in The Stage). Maybe it was too subtle for the average person with only a casual interest in Spice Girls. I still think it was somewhat "2+2=5" to land on "omg they're touring!!" off the back of that though. I think most of us big fans had a good idea of what this teaser would end up being about, based on the hints in the mailer. For one, we know that a brand new album from the Spice Girls is extremely unlikely... so the "are you a collector"/"you will need a vinyl or CD player" really seemed to point to a retrospective release rather than it being something new. If anyone thinks that these releases are far too expensive for what they are, then of course that's fair to say. Also deciding not to buy them because of this is also very valid! However I don't believe there was a likelihood that Universal would have justified a lower price point at pre-order and still consider it wise to commission what is really a niche/fan-service product. Oasis released a 4x 7" vinyl singles box set last year. It's currently £79.99 (HMV and Amazon UK), and seemingly the cheapest it's been sold for "as new" is just under £60. The Spice Girls' 14x 7" vinyl singles box set is priced at £180 (as a minimum RRP). To me, this doesn't seem out of step in the current market for releases like this. It is expensive, I wouldn't try to claim that this is some kind of bargain (it's money for old rope, mostly!). Nowadays though, items like this are almost always really pricey. Like I wrote before, I was surprised to see that the prices weren't as high as I feared they could be. P.S. These are the mock-ups of the artwork with hype stickers: Also I don't recall seeing the vinyl track lists being posted here: Tracklist: 1. Wannabe / Bumper To Bumper 2. Say You'll Be There (Single Mix) / Take Me Home 3. 2 Become 1 (Single Version) / One Of These Girls 4. Mama (Radio Version) / Who Do You Think You Are (Radio Version) 5. Step To Me (7” Mix) / Move Over 6. Spice Up Your Life (Stent Radio Mix) / Spice Invaders 7. Too Much (Radio Edit) / Outer Space Girls 8. Stop / Ain't No Stopping Us Now (Featuring Luther Vandross) 9. Viva Forever (Radio Edit) / Viva Forever (Tony Rich Remix) 10. Goodbye (Radio Edit) / Christmas Wrapping 11. Holler (Radio Edit) / Let Love Lead The Way (Radio Edit) 12. Tell Me Why (Radio Edit*) / If You Wanna Have Some Fun (Radio Edit)* 13. Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) / Wannabe (Soul Seekerz Radio Edit) 14. Do You Think About Me (Demo)** / 2 Become 1 (Demo)** A bit of a pity that Baby Come Round and Walk of Life couldn't be included because of time constraints of this format. Technically they could have squeezed Mama and Who Do You Think You Are onto one side, but that would have sacrificed sound quality. (Not forgetting Sleigh Ride, but I'm less fussed about that being omitted x)

I keep seeing reel after reel and TikTok after TikTok of people complaining about this, saying they feel duped by the announcement. It seems that a lot of them were fully expecting the teaser to result in a tour announcement. They're also heavily criticising the existence of these box sets. "No one buys CDs anymore, I've got the original singles in the loft", etc. I don't think I've actually ever seen a music physical item get such widespread negative feedback. That's not even because of the demos disc and what it's missing, because most of these people don't know the ins and outs of all that. They basically don't think the box set should be happening at all, regardless of what it contains! I mean to an extent I get the general public's disappointment - of course we'd love to see them back together again. But... geesh, I'm not exactly sure what it was about the mailer that indicated at all that the Spice Girls were about to announce a tour! If these casual/sleeper fans had just read it more carefully... instead of working themselves up into a frenzy over nothing, then they wouldn't have been left disappointed. Reading comprehension, people!! I would agree that they're expensive items that a lot of people won't justify buying. It's definitely one for the hardcore fans, collectors etc. It's probably not targeted towards the average 40-something mother of three who plays Wannabe on Spotify every now and again & wants to relive her childhood for a night. Honestly though, I was bracing myself for the boxsets to cost more than they do! I feel like absolutely everything is so pricey these days. 7" vinyl singles as individual releases often cost around £15... £15 x 14 singles included = £210, but it's £180 on their store, also including postcards, booklet, the box itself. I would have been very pleasantly surprised if it had been any lower. Interestingly Phoenix (Mel B's daughter) responded to the announcement video with "just tour already" and I saw Mel B had liked an Instagram post of one random woman's complaints about the box set/there being no tour. So... Mel B doesn't care for this release either? Or is that just her subtly expressing how she wants to tour, more so than agreeing with the box set criticism? Kind of fascinating that none of the girls acknowledged this release at all, have they? Maybe when it's out in November? They surely all had to sign off and agree to it.

I did and instantly decided to pretend that it never happened A spectacularly unfunny advert but yeah, glad Geri's not completely shut the door on Spice stuff...

Yep definitely should say to take the estimates with a pinch of salt! The old sales totals that I'm getting "average sales per week" figures from are getting increasingly out of date, there could be such a difference in that now. Say You'll Be There could be too low, since the last updates it's gone up to their 2nd most popular song on Spotify. Stop could be too high, I have a gut feeling it's not doing quite the number of sales it once was. I would like to think it has exceeded 1 million though, hope so! As @Mr.X mentions, Viva Forever could have a higher figure than that, can't really work out how the last few months have benefited it. It really deserves a million!

Seemingly an unreleased picture?

Let’s keep the thread to Spice Girls now

I'm keeping everything crossed that the "previously promo only" songs are in very high quality and are not just YouTube rips Even though "Goodbye (Orchestral Master)" eventually leaked, I'm a bit nervous about how they sourced it... I have a 160kbps mp3 of it, but not sure if it leaked in a higher quality than that. Another song that leaked recently that I feel shoud have been included to really please the fans, is the rap version of Say You'll Be There. For years that was holy grail stuff. It would have been nice for that to be made properly official via this box set release. I wonder why they don't want to put out Likely Stories, Sugar & Spice, Melody of Life, Strong Enough? Maybe they went with Do You Think About Me because of them performing it a capella back in 1996, which I suppose could technically make it a Spice demo if they had intentions of saving that one from the Touch era. But just that by itself is underwhelming. The demo CD would be a lot more appealing if they'd stretched to at least three previously unreleased songs.

The demos disc is disappointing when we know what could have been included! Even if WOMAN is just not able to be released for whatever mysterious reasons, there was so much more they could have drawn from other than Do You Think About Me. Reusing 6 already released demos from Spice 25 / Spiceworld 25 is pretty meh. Overall though I agree @ThePensmith it looks beautifully presented! I've quite literally dreamt about them releasing a singles box set for so many years, so I'm glad it's finally becoming a reality. I think it's a very nice way to mark their anniversary, in terms of releasing a product for it. I was bracing myself for a Tiny Vinyl box set, so I'm pleasantly surprised that it's 7" vinyl - it'll be nice for the singles to have larger artwork! (I actually think the Wannabe tiny vinyl is cute, but I'm good with that being a one-off gimmick). I find it to be unfortunate that their teaser got the media/general public into an "omg a reunion tour?!" state. It seems that the replication of the The Stage ad and what it actually hinted at totally flew over a lot of heads! On the one hand it's always nice to be reminded that the public is always interested in them coming back together. But it is a shame that this misplaced hype now comes across as being a let down to these same people.

https://store.thespicegirls.com/ (Note that it's also available from Amazon and Townsend - I assume HMV will stock it too but I can't find it on their website yet) Thirty years of Spice Girls. One definitive collection in one iconic box. For the first time ever, all of the Spice Girls’ singles are brought together in one complete collection. From Wannabe to Holler, Spice Up Your Life to Goodbye; The Singles Collection brings together the singles, original artwork, B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from the Spice Girls archive in a handbag- inspired box, finished in white holographic gloss and matt black foil. Inside the 7" Colour Vinyl Box Set: • 14 individually coloured 7” vinyl records • All original singles with their lead B-sides • 14 sleeves featuring the original single artwork • Bonus discs: Step To Me and Tell Me Why • Two previously unreleased demos, including Do You Think About Me, one of the group’s earliest recordings • Limited-edition numbering card • Five collectable art cards • 28-page booklet featuring brand-new messages from all five Spice Girls • Exclusive Spice Girls 30th anniversary acrylic charm Inside the CD Box Set: • 14 CDs featuring 160 tracks • All original singles, complete B-sides and rare remixes • Bonus discs: Step To Me and Tell Me Why • Exclusive disc featuring four previously unreleased demos, including Do You Think About Me, one of the group’s earliest recordings • Limited-edition numbering card • Five collectable art cards • 32-page booklet featuring brand-new messages from all five Spice Girls • Exclusive Spice Girls 30th anniversary acrylic charm The Singles Collection is released on 6 November, 30 years to the week since SPICE turned five girls into a global phenomenon and Girl Power into a worldwide movement.

Handbag-inspired - more accurately a box with a strap on it! 160 tracks on the CDs is intriguing - that certainly suggests expanded track lists across all the singles. Four demos has me a little concerned... I think if this doesn't include WOMAN then we're seriously never getting it released.

The image recreating the original 1994 auditions ad is cool! Yeah as @Babyboy says, it appears it's going to be a singles box set, maybe simply called The Singles. Potentially a CD box set and a tiny vinyl box set? I fear the prices!

I'm R3ADY!

5 years already 🥺 Forever missed. Her incredible legacy, both as an iconic popstar and for her groundbreaking impact on cancer research, will live on. ❤️

It frustrated me a lot a bit that Music Week didn't share a total for Chemistry when they had the opportunity to do so (thankfully they did for the other 3 album re-releases). Last we knew officially for a Chemistry total was 394,868 in August 2019. I believe it likely would have passed 400,000 in advance of its 20th anniversary edition release. It had 6 years to accumulate a little over 5,000 copies... and I'm sure the 2024 reunion would have boosted its weekly sales for a while. Theoretically if Chemistry had only just passed 400,000 copies the week before it sold 2,488 copies... it would have only needed to sell 16 units per week since August 2019. It's anyone's guess what it does sell on average, but Tangled Up and What Will the Neighbours Say? is nearer 40 units per week... so hopefully for Chemistry it is more than 16. If it was 20 sales per week, then that would have seen it at 401,000 just in advance of the re-release. Adding on the almost 2,500 it sold in re-release week, it would have been on 403,500. Estimated totals: I'd therefore imagine that Chemistry has exceeded 405,000? Sound of the Underground - around 385,000 to 390,000. What Will the Neighbours Say? - approaching 625,000. Maybe 810,000 for Out of Control. Including Tangled Up (revealed as 526,375 on Friday)... my estimate for their total sales of studio albums to be around 2.75m to 2.76m. Including The Sound of Girls Aloud and Ten, I think it's likely that they've exceeded 4.5m album sales. Throwing in Mixed Up, Girls A Live, the albums box set, The Whole Damn Megamix and Christmas Round at Ours, I would guess 4.55m. Throw in their single sales on top of that (maybe 7.3m to 7.4m?), and I'm thinking at least 11.9m (that's just the 22 singles, not however much the non-singles have accumulated... that would probably see them over 12m units). I wish we knew for sure. 😄 Please take all of this with a pinch of salt!

It seems it can manage around 40 sales per week, so brace yourself for a double platinum celebration to happen sometime in the 2060s!

Not to downplay how well Bananarama's anniversary album is doing, because it's doing excellently - but there is a lot of variants. It's pretty much been given the sort of treatment that brand new albums tend to get! There's a range of cheaper to more expensive items, so their fanbase is really spoiled for choice. Whereas Girls Aloud's label has been relatively restrained with the number of variants and there's no particularly cheap options. I would say another difference between the groups is that Bananarama's three members are all able to celebrate this 40th anniversary, going as far as signing CDs and photo sets. Whereas in that regard, the Girls Aloud reissues are bittersweet, due to Sarah sadly not being with us anymore. The remaining four members of the group have been inactive for a couple of years. As far as I'm aware none of them have remarked on Tangled Up's release (which has been released 19 years on from the original release... so unlike the first three reissues, this isn't a 20th anniverary moment). The following is just my assumption... but I doubt the idea of having the girls sign some physicals or merch has ever been broached because of the circumstances, and that's often a way to draw people in to purchasing physicals. Ultimately I'd say that the Girls Aloud reissues have been fairly lowkey in terms of the push they've received, however they've been great at giving Girls Aloud fans what they want, including previously unheard songs/unseen pictures. Fabulous stuff for Bananarama fans though, and them being so high in the midweeks is exciting! I hope it can remain Top 10. 🤩 I've listed all of their variants (and yes this took me an awfully long time to write up ) Bananarama - True Confessions (40th Anniversary) (Red text below = a product that is exclusive to that particular store) 3CD [49 Tracks] {£14.99 - Bananarama Store | £17.99 - HMV + Amazon} CD [17 Tracks] {£6.99 - Bananarama Store | £8.99 - HMV + Amazon} CD (Siobhan Edition) Bananarama Store [12 Tracks] {£8.99} CD (Keren Edition) Bananarama Store [12 Tracks] {£8.99} CD (Sara Edition) Bananarama Store [12 Tracks] {£8.99} CD (Slipcase/Alternative Artwork) Amazon [17 Tracks] {£8.99} Vinyl (Red) HMV [11 Tracks] {£27.99} Vinyl (Green/Yellow Splatter) Townsend [11 Tracks] {£30.00} Vinyl (Picture Disc) [11 Tracks] {£28.99} Double Vinyl (Black) [19 Tracks] {£31.99 - Bananarama Store | £37.99 - HMV & Amazon} Cassette (Red) Bananarama Store [11 Tracks] {£8.99} Download (The Video Edition) Bananarama Store [11 Tracks + 4 music videos] {£5.99} Download (Obsessions of Your Mind and Rarities Edition) Bananarama Store [31 Tracks + voice note + 11x digital polaroid images] {£5.99} Download [15 Tracks] {iTunes & Amazon - £4.99} Download (Remix Edition) iTunes [22 Tracks] {£4.99} Download (Rarities Edition) iTunes [29 Tracks] {£4.99} Additional Info: Bananarama Store - Until 3rd September, pre-ordering any format from their store enters the customer into a competition to win a bespoke jacket and a red vinyl signed by Bananarama. - There are 6 different bundles of formats + merch items: 1. CD, Download (The Video Edition) + Badge Set {£13.99} 2. CD, Cassette + Badge Set {£16.99} 3. The Band Member CD Bundle Siobhan, Keren & Sara editions {£24.99} 4. The Super Bundle 3CD, CD, CDs - Siobhan, Keren & Sara editions, Picture Disc Vinyl, Double Vinyl, Cassette + "Album" T-Shirt in Black or White, "Graphic" T-Shirt in Black or White, "Album" Tote Bag in Black or White + "Graphic" Tote Bag in Black or White {£199.99} 5. The Picture Disc Bundle 3CD, Picture Disc Vinyl, Cassette + "Album" T-Shirt in Black or White {£79.99} 6. The Double LP Bundle 3CD, Double Vinyl, Cassette + "Graphic" Tote Bag in Black or White {£69.99} Banquet Records 1. Signed CDs Siobhan, Keren & Sara editions {£9.00 each, or £25.00 for bundle} 2. Signed Photo Sets Bundled with a choice between - CD {£8.00}, 3CD {£16.00}, Picture Disc Vinyl {£28.00} or Double LP Vinyl {£34.00} Girls Aloud - Tangled Up (Deluxe) (Purple text below = a product that is exclusive to that particular store) 3CD [40 Tracks] {£16.99 - Girls Aloud Store | £22.99 - HMV + Amazon} Vinyl (Purple) [12 Tracks] {£25.99 - Girls Aloud Store | £30.99 - HMV + Amazon} Vinyl (Picture Disc) Girls Aloud Store [12 Tracks] {£29.99} Download [40 Tracks] {£14.99 - Amazon | £15.99 - iTunes} Additional Info: Girls Aloud Store - For a limited time, pre-ordering any format from their store bundled them with a limited edition sticker sheet. - There are 5 different bundles of formats + merch items: 1. 3CD, Purple Vinyl, Picture Disc Vinyl 2. 3CD, Purple Vinyl 3. 3CD, Picture Disc Vinyl 4. Purple Vinyl + White Cropped Tank 5. Picture Disc Vinyl + Black T-Shirt

Glad Music Week gave an updated total for Tangled Up (still fuming that they didn't for Chemistry xx)