-Jay-

22 years(!!) since Maybe was released! Still sounds as fresh & thrilling to me now as it did way back in 2003.

Spice Up Your Life was released 28 years ago on this date!

I wonder if this is also when the album will be announced? Really looking forward to hearing the song in its entirety! The clip is very fun 💃🏻

Will be interesting to see what benefits come from Melanie C having a distributor in the UK!

That’s pretty awesome! I bet there’s many big names in music who’d fall over themselves to work on a Spice Girls comeback. I wish they’d realise that. 🥺

I believe the 2019 backstage invite was circumstantial because of his friend’s illness? It seemed to rest on that and ultimately be more about her than about him. Even if he was the one who was pushy enough to make that happen… I don’t think it would have necessarily happened unless there’d been that reason. My view is that him meeting them hundreds of times each is merely a choice he’s made in life, but it doesn’t mean anything in particular… and it certainly doesn’t mean that he’s the most dedicated or best fan. Anyone else could choose to do that if they had money to burn and the time to do it. Fans around the world who’ve never met any of them once are just as dedicated in their own ways. He’s not more special than any other fans and he certainly doesn’t represent me as a fan! I don’t think his mission has ever been to be helpful to fans, he just wants to show off and come across as being important. It’s self-serving behaviour. He’s shown on numerous occasions that he’s not a particularly nice person; the way he behaved throughout the 2016 leaks debacle was actually horrendous and weird. It’s also kind of sad how some fans suck up to him, I think it’s clearly because they see him as a vessel to help them feel like they could get closer to the girls, by keeping him on side. This is why I avoid Spice Circle, not just because of him but because of how others willingly put him on that pedestal, I just dislike the culture of that. Hearing that he said that to Melanie C is just so aggravating, I really don’t know who he thinks he is to say that.

Why would he feel so entitled to tell Melanie C what she and the girls should do? Ugh, he's the worst kind of fan and I don't understand why he's always put on a pedestal. Personally I think he embellishes how close he's "connected" with them/"the team". Case in point, him stating outright only a month ago that there wouldn't be a Forever vinyl, but lo and behold there is a vinyl... and it's easy for him to just say that plans changed, to get out of looking like he just makes up what he apparently knows about. Send him to the moon with no return flight x (kidding) (or am I)

We don’t know yet if it is going ahead or not. It could still be officially announced this year. Last year an Amazon page for a vinyl appeared, and their Linkfire was discovered which had a link directing to their official store (which didn’t work, but had the Christmas Round at Ours title). We’re not supposed to know about this Christmas release. The theory is that it didn’t happen because of Liam Payne’s death, but we never got confirmation because they never actually officially announced the release.

Lol how curious that Geri put that idea in motion only to leave so suddenly. That could have been an interesting thing to materialise.

I went with Emma for favourite song, but Geri for video and overall package (although shout to to Better Alone for having good B Sides!)

The looks Emma is serving lately, she looks like she's about to promote her brand new new solo album which is full of original and career highlight songs! Alas... Victoria's documentary re: Spice Girls.... I will preface this post by saying I haven't actually watched it for myself, but from what I've read, it's all a bit meh. She claims that David had to convince her to take part in the 2007/8 tour: “When I was working with Roland [Mouret] the other Spice Girls told me they wanted to go on tour. David was like, you know, ‘It’s really good for the kids to see you do this,’” she said. In a cutaway, David told the camera: “Our kids weren’t around to see their mum be a Spice Girl.” Victoria added: “He mum-guilted me!" While I think it's evident that by the end of the tour Victoria was over it, I personally don't believe she was reluctant before it began... I mean, she was in full-on WAG / reality TV show mode at that point. Also, she made a comment about Mel B: “One of the girls actually said to me, and it did upset me not too long ago actually,” Victoria recalled in episode two of the docuseries. “It was Melanie B who said to me, ‘Don’t forget where you’ve come from.’” But as the 51-year-old explained, “I have never forgotten where I come from. I’ve never, ever forgotten that Posh Spice is the reason that I’m sitting here now. She might have been grumpy, but she was actually great.” The reports about this aren't very clear about when it happened, "not too long ago" suggests 2018/19 tour era to me? Some articles claim 2007/8 but that was clearly a long time ago lol.

Melanie has a distribution deal for this era with Virgin Music Group! We also know that there'll be a cassette format for this album, it briefly appeared on a German store.

True, she took a while with that last time. 29th July 2020 was the previous album's announcement date, with the era beginning with Who I Am on 19th March. Which was more or less 19 weeks of promoting the era before anyone could start ordering the album. The release date came after about 9 weeks of pre-orders. I can't say it didn't work out in the end considering she got to #8 in the UK, although we could speculate that anyone who was casually engaged with the era during the Who I Am and Blame It on Me releases should have had the option to pre-order at those points. It's the right move to have album pre-orders go up alongside the first single this time, it's just that 7 months overall is quite excessive between launch & release date. It'll be interesting to see how she stretches the era out over that period of time. Going to assume at least 4 songs released in the run up to it (whether they're all proper singles, or some are just promotional singles, we shall also have to wait and see).

Rotten Tomatoes (33%): Metacritic (52): IMDb (6.2):

Apparently just 20 minutes of the overall documentary covers Spice Girls stuff 😔 and none of the other girls are talking heads in it. Seems the reviews largely agree with you, there's a very "meh" reaction to it overall. One review said that we don't learn anything we don't already know, another called it a puff piece. I don't think I'm in any rush to watch this, oops.

Loving the artwork and I'm excited, but gosh it's over half a year to wait for it lol (29 weeks from today).

Welcome @Headlines and @Emma Bunton Fan !

Yeah, I'd say of all the moments following them as a fan, this has to be one of the most deflating times ever. It just feels like they ("they" being the girls, their team, the label) don't care all that much. It's all very "this will do", low effort. I don't detect passion. I don't trust that those involved in designing this new release have particular knowledge about the era (those summer 1998 pictures for postcards...) I know this Forever vinyl makes Spice 25 and Spiceworld 25 look like they gave us a lot by comparison, but I won't forget the shoddy aspects of both of those releases. The odd track lists with omissions (neither release could be considered completist), the designs, the quality... all lacking. The whole 25th anniversary project has mostly been very meh. The group - and certainly the fans - deserved a whole lot better. I am doing a mini protest by not buying this Forever vinyl to contribute to its first week. I don't feel like they deserve my £30 for this. Somewhere down the line I might get it if it ends up having its price slashed, but even if I missed out on it I wouldn't be too bothered. I have the 2020 version which personally I think looks superior. Despite this, I keep hanging on... even now I'm like, well, let's see what they'll cook up for the 30th anniversary. Lol. As confusing and bizarre as that mailer paragraph is, I'll foolishly hope it results in something good... And I completely agree, I wish the Spice Girls had their own Nicola Roberts, somebody who clearly cares about the legacy and has a great understanding of what fans want. As a Girls Aloud fan, I really can't fault what they've done with their reissues - they could have actually done far less and yet still be superior to the Spice Girls reissues, lol.

It will be interesting to see the sales report on Friday 10th October and determine whether it would have been a better release week for Chemistry. Two weeks earlier than Chemistry's release, the #58 album sold a little less than what Chemistry sold at #71: 09/10/2025 - #71 - 2,488 - Girls Aloud - Chemistry 25/09/2025 - #58 - 2,483 - Addison Rae - Addison It highlights that it was a tough week! I think in most weeks this year, 2,488 sales would usually have been enough for a Top 60 placement.

I am most hyped for Jade, Kylie, Sugababes and Zara

^ Camp! Random - but on social media, a few Little Mix fans have targeted Melanie's posts about this release. They're drawing attention to these comments Melanie made back in 2016: “I love Little Mix. I loved them from The X Factor. I just thought they were so different. But they are getting more provocative. To me, they were kind of the closest thing to the Spice Girls we’ve seen. They are all gorgeous and great singers. But they weren’t sexy and it’s got more and more that way. I love them – but I just say, ‘Stay you’. [My daughter] is a massive Little Mix fan but I’ve started to be more sparing in what I show her. I don’t let her watch videos by artists that aren’t appropriate for her. That makes me a bit sad. All young women want to look sexy and hot so I understand it’s hard. But I think it’s such a shame. We live in a narcissistic age – it’s 100 per cent worse than when I was in the Spice Girls. It was a more innocent time, although we were criticised for wearing crop tops." ... and pointing out that she's a hypocrite because of how she's presenting herself now. I'm conflicted. Honestly, I feel like Melanie C in 2025 is quite a changed person with different attitudes than who she was even in 2016. I would also give her grace as a first-time parent trying to navigate what she didn't want her daughter being exposed to. And I think that's her prerogative. Whether she needed to say it in an interview is another matter... and I don't think Little Mix needed to tone down their image for these reasons. But also, I'm like... this was 9 years ago, and Little Mix both in the group and solo have continued to have great success since those comments... so do they really need to hold on to this grudge and have "gotcha!" moments aimed at Melanie C after all this time? I don't know... Also Melanie addressed this at the time...

I've personally never seen a more overwhelmingly negative comments section of any artist's release announcement posts, before this 🫨 Who knows whether their team will check/care about that. A lot of disappointment has been expressed, many saying they won't buy it. I wonder what the label's expectation for sales are. Presumably they figured that it will sell enough to justify pressing it. However, with the poor reaction it's received, I wonder if it's going to sell a lot less than they imagined... It's an interesting decision to put out just one vinyl again, because they already have evidence of how the previous one did. The 2020 release of course being its first time ever on vinyl. In the UK that resulted in... 696 physical sales. (820 overall sales that week when adding in 37 streaming sales and 87 downloads - 87 downloads only being the case because of a vain attempt at encouraging a sales campaign, lol). That chart week needed 940 sales to make the Top 200. Fast forward 5 years, and it typically takes between 1,200 to 1,300 sales to make the Top 200. So I sincerely doubt that this new release has any chance of making the chart.

Upscaled to 1080p!

Them acknowledging that they know what fans want but "aren't able to give [us] that" is an extremely bizarre admission to make in a mailer. Why aren't they? I truly fear that the Christmas "watch this space" will end up being "WOMAN - Live from Christmas in Spiceworld 1999". I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry if that happens...!

From their mailer. What the hell...