Piers

I was just thinking...we're actually coming up on ten years since Mel blurted out she was recording a duet with Janet Jackson...and would even be going on tour with her. Janet's reps had to swoop in and discredit Mel's claims. Point being. The past ten years have held *a lot* of lies. It's hard to keep tabs on them all. My best guess is this. Mel's just looking to raise her profile...and by the time her latest big claim is proven false, she might have some other work booked. Mel's not really held accountable for making stuff up. Will anyone really call her out on the royal wedding claims? Even if they did, she could just say "Well. Didn't work out!" and that would be that.

A ton of outlets ran with the "only three Spice Girls invited to the royal wedding" thing...including...quite oddly...Fox News. I mean. Is everyone just basing this off of the Page Six article...quoting some source they didn't reveal? I wouldn't say it's exactly confirmed that's what happened. Anyway. I guess Mel B just said what she said as a way to raise her profile for a short while. It's probably why she flat-out makes up a lot of things. This is the first time I've seen a lot of outlets calling her out on a lie. Her comments from The Real have been in a lot of royal wedding articles yesterday and today.

*sigh* Look. Mel B's my favorite member. Always has been. Always will be. Buuut. I have to assume the other four girls have been in a group text for years...with lots and lots of messages reading "OMG...did you hear what she said now?!" The tabloids and talk shows still don't seem to have caught on to the fact Mel's big announcements never actually happen. I guess they all just think they have a big scoop every time Mel blurts out something. Do the other girls call her out on it? Is it all just wishful thinking on Mel's part?...like if she announces plans enough the others will feel obliged to do it? And how far back can we trace Mel doing this? Years and years ago...I remember her claiming they might release more Forever singles in 2002. But as a general rule, I think these, erm, "premature announcements" came about post-reunion tour...

All these years later I find the continued disparagement of Forever to be quite odd. I prefer Spice and Spiceworld myself...but out of the new material (not counting Goodbye), Forever has at least five decent single contenders. I don't even include Let Love Lead the Way in that. The album's all perfectly solid material. Tell Me Why could've been a bit hit...in part because it's a good track...but also because of the natural controversy over it being about Geri. Beats me whether they would have fessed up to the song's real meaning at the time (they were often so unwilling to admit obvious tensions there)...but the speculation would have driven it. Jam n' Lewis were also still ruling the charts in that era...so If You Wanna Have Some Fun would have a very good shot with the right radio edit. Anyway. Yes, I think they could have soldiered on after Forever...but they would have had to actually commit to the album and see it through first. Forever has the misfortune of being unceremoniously dumped into the world and immediately abandoned. I think the fanbase would be a lot kinder to it if it were just another step in a continuing musical evolution of the Spice Girls. There's a reason Madonna's fans don't obsess over Hard Candy as much as Spice fans obsess over Forever. Hard Candy was a phase...an era... the artist moved on. But...in abandoning Forever...that album never had an era. All three of the Spice albums got some brutal reviews at the time of release...but the nostalgia for Spice and Spiceworld allowed them to have a certain critical re-evaluation much later. Forever doesn't get to have that. While I'll admit Spice and Spiceworld are better...and certainly more unique...Forever deserved more than what it got. It may be the work of a group that was over it...but it really doesn't sound like it.

Return of the Spice Girls probably. I'm not 100% on the setlist. Obviously, I would've rather had Never Give Up On the Good Times or Do It over the Celebration medley...and I wish I Want You Back and Out of Your Mind got solo performances as they'd become forgotten solo Spice hits. But. Staging was immaculate. All the singles sounded amazing. The girls are also the rare group to peak in performance ability long after their heyday...so...I think the show is (overall) stronger. I like all the shows, though. With Istanbul/world tour/Wembley, the live band did wonders with some non-single songs. If You Can't Dance, Love Thing, and Something Kinda Funny sounded amazing. I think Naked on the Spice album is a smidge ho-hum...but I *love* the live version. It completely brought the song to life. On the flip side...I think a few of the big songs were a bit let down. 2 Become 1 and Too Much didn't sound nearly as good live...and the live Spice Up Your Life always lacked the manic energy of the album version (I think Christmas in Spiceworld and Return of the Spice Girls later cracked the code on how to do that song).

Northern Star. I still love it. Go!, NS, Goin Down, ITTY, NBTSA, GaGa, and Closer were all worthy of being hit singles...and I even think Suddenly Monday and Be the One could've made for decent double A sides just because they deserve to be heard. Mel C was killing it during that time. Even the b-sides were amazing. The rest of the albums for me would go...Schizophonic, A Girl Like Me, VB, Hot. I'll say this, though. I like I Want You Back, Tell Me, and Feels So Good better than anything off A Girl Like Me or VB. I love those three songs. Always did. The latter two really deserved to be bigger. But a lot of Hot really let Mel B down. Stuff like Hell No and ABC 123 couldn't have been more generic. Mel's personality was so big, she didn't need to have such anonymous songs that could have been sung by literally anyone.

One of the most concerning parts of this idea to me is...while Simon is a genius at certain aspects of handling artists...that really...really...doesn't apply to his handling of films. From Justin to Kelly and S Club Seeing Double happened on his watch. Spice World gets points from me for being just so unapologetically weird and campy despite belonging to the biggest group of that era. 90s nostalgia can somewhat save it now...but we have to be honest. Whatever they do now has to be better. A lot better. Why do we believe that during the group's heyday we'd just get a product like Spice World...but think 20 years later that Disney and Marvel will create something truly great with them? I don't think Simon has the best sense of quality control in this arena. A demand for the Spice Girls definitely exists. Every time another reunion rumor surfaces (which is...a lot) all my social sites explode with excited reposts/retweets. That's coming from middle America. But I truly do believe the fandom exists only over seeing the actual girls. A reunion tour would be a towering success...and I really do think anything else is doomed. There's a reason why I see hundreds of reposts/retweets from friends over a reunion tour rumor...but I see none when word of an animated movie breaks....

I'll say this for Darkchild...I think his work for the girls was as solid as what he's done for anyone else. Mel B claimed at the time she felt he handed off the better material to Britney...but I don't agree with that at all. I think his Forever work towers over what he did for Brit. But Darkchild was never Timbaland/Teddy Riley/Jam n' Lewis in their prime. He was never really up to churning out an album's worth of solid material for anyone. He tended to be best used doing a song or two or three on an artists' album. So. To his credit with Forever...I think he gave the girls two obvious singles in Holler and Tell Me Why...and a third possible single with Weekend Love. Nobody asked me...but I never would've released Let Love Lead the Way as a single. I like the chorus...but find the verses meandering. It's still worthy of the album, though...just like everything else he gave them. I feel he was genuinely proud of that album too. He continued to talk it up and predict Grammy wins...even after the album had gone down in flames on the charts.

I actually really like the Open Your Eyes album with one exception...Let Your Head Go. I know. Unpopular opinion. It's kinda fun in a guilty pleasure sort of way...but I find the lyrics to be clunky and awkward. But. The rest of the album? I think she cracked the code on what a Victoria Beckham album should be. Her first album is okay...but I think it's a bit too obsessed with the "I'm just a normal girl...honest!...SEE!" stuff. The Open Your Eyes album fully embraces the Posh Spice ice queen image. Her team got it right. I'm a lot more conflicted about the Damon Dash album. I like This Groove...and even though it was intended to be dumped, I find myself humming So Cold a lot. I think a lot of the rest of the album is all wrong for her, though...and could've been really embarrassing had it been given an official release. That Dude and Take You There emphasize her voice at its least flattering. I'm glad to see some people like Dat Simple...because I think it's a total trainwreck. All that said...I'm not sure how many big hits she would've gotten out of either album. I think the likes of Should've Known Better and Generate the Flow could have been further top 5 or top 10 contenders...but to me, the only unreleased song of hers that could've landed a #1 was My Love is For Real.

Hoo boy. What's scary is Variety is a generally reliable source...and isn't likely to make up something out of thin air. So. That said...who on earth made that quote? Disney owns Marvel, Indiana Jones and Star Wars. Between all of that and the constant live action remakes of their past films, Disney is destined to rule the box office for the rest of eternity. They don't exactly "need" a group that's been defunct for 17 years. I'm guessing the strategy is to pull in new, young fans. The music and characters would hold up for them...and animation would hide that these are now women in their 40s. But. I can't see any major production taking the gamble. The girls had their chance to record a song for the Hercules soundtrack back in 1997. That Disney ship sailed long ago. Just another premature plan leaking out without a prayer of actually happening?