Piers

I've always kinda wondered if the real reason some of them have been hesitant about recording new music...is what it could do to the price of their offers. New material (no matter how good it is) will obviously sell a lot less and chart lower than the group in their prime. Could certain members think that could effect how much they'd be offered for a tour/Las Vegas residency/etc? I don't know. I'm just not totally buying the idea they don't think they can hack it creatively. Do we really know they can't do it? Do they really know they can't do it? In just the past few years, the two Emma originals we got, the Melanie C album, and Geri's unreleased material all show they still have an ability to construct a solid song. Song For Her is used as too much of an example around here as to why it can't work. It is a demo we were never supposed to hear for a TV show that never got picked up. How harsh should we really be to this song? Headlines and Voodoo were recorded with the group split across the world...with a producer who was just trying to recapture the sound of the previous decade. The truth is...the group hasn't been unified in a musical effort since...the initial recordings for Forever in 1999?

I actually do think Song For Her would have worked how it was intended...as a TV show theme song. In that sense, I think the song completely understands the assignment. I can imagine that chorus playing during the show's intro video...with the contestants dancing around...and the girls striking sassy poses or whatever. I figure we would have gone in and out of commercials with a quick "This is a song for her!" clip. I think there's a kernel of an idea that could have worked within the GEM proposal. It was a doomed plan to try to use a show to cast women to tour with Mel, Geri, and Emma. As much as they wanted to say "no one's getting replaced!"...replacing VB and Mel C (even for a singular tour) was literally what they were doing for the project. However...I do think a solid show could have been made out of Mel, Geri, and Emma playing hosts/mentors to a group of moms vying for a recording contract. Make it available to all moms...but with an emphasis on ones in their 30s/40s and up who perhaps thought their moment had passed them by. Have the girls do surprise appearances at the homes of each contestant. Leave elimination strictly to audience votes...so the girls themselves can be strictly supportive mentors. Does that totally defeat their original intent of doing a show so the three piece could go on tour? Yes. But. Whatever. That's my belated pitch. Last thought. I honestly am surprised no one picked up the show's original concept. Even if it would have been damaging to the Spice brand...I figure it likely would have been a ratings success for a network.

I think there's another major factor that could have shaped their careers if they launched in the streaming era...that's not actually linked to streaming. The brutality of their reviews and the tabloid articles in general just wouldn't be as intense. The tides have somewhat changed in that arena. The way write-ups treated them is appalling by today's standards. It's not that reviews aren't still often critical/snarky. But just read NME's unhinged review of Northern Star. It claims the album is so bad that if Mel tries to record again, someone should shoot her to death because no court would convict them (I'm actually putting this more nicely than they did). Few critics were even bothering to listen to Geri and Victoria's albums...and were instead just launching into tirades about their weight and trumped up "controversies" (why they were so bothered by Victoria wearing a lip ring one time...I'll never know). I remember Mel C being branded "The One Who Ate All The Pies Spice". Honestly, I think so much hate crushed their spirits. For Mel C, I think a pursuit of critical acceptance partly led to the bland, compromised Reason. Telstar folding is ultimately what did in Victoria...but she'd previously spoken about actually being happy enough with her chart positions, it was just her critiques that stung so much. I know the common perception today is that she didn't belong making music...but her unreleased pop material showed an honest artistic growth...until she second guessed herself and ruined it all with Damon Dash. Geri, I've always interpreted as an uncommonly sensitive celeb...and it's obvious the articles were a blow to her confidence. A lot of the solo albums weren't *perfect*...but had they been given fair write-ups by...sane reviewers/columnists...I'm curious if their collective solo careers would have soldiered on longer...and evolved differently.

This is the video. It's their electronic press kit from the Wannabe launch. It would have been their introduction to a lot of media companies (in fact, I still see a lot of shows borrowing from this video). Bizarrely enough, they actually used this video to open the 1997 Billboard Music Awards...with that soundbite of Geri claiming to be 21 when she was actually 25 by the time of the awards show. I mean. They're definitely lying here...but my guess is Simon/Virgin/whoever told them to. They also tended to lie about how they long they'd been together early on. There's a radio interview clip in the One Hour Of Girl Power video where they claim to have been together for four years...when (at the time the footage was shot) they were actually several months short of hitting even the three year anniversary of the initial group audition. I think it was Rolling Stone that confronted them about lying about how long they'd been a group. But the girls just smiled and thought it was funny...so...it never really became a thing.

If I'm remembering this correctly, the fake ages came from that 1996 video press release that launched the group. It's the one that has them performing Wannabe (and has been misinterpreted as an alternate version of the video over the years). The girls themselves give wrong ages in that video. Super odd. Did they think Geri being 23 or whatever was going to sink their chances at radio? I don't think there was much scandal about the real ages cause they seemed to drop the charade so quickly. I'm fairly sure they were answering their real ages in some of those early TV appearances.

I guess we can view this as a bit of a one-off...but honestly, the song does seem to sum up the image/vibe Madonna has been giving off in the post-Madame X era. Is that a good thing? Well. I guess being defiant of what anyone thinks she should sound like in her 60s...is a very Madonna thing to do. And certainly...whatever we were expecting Madonna to sound like nearly 25 years after Ray Of Light...this definitely isn't it. Madonna's sung bits in this song are kinda catchy, but...sorry. I know this is going to make me sound old as dirt...but aren't people getting bored of shallow songs that list off a bunch of brand names? M spent decades upset by people not understanding the tongue-in-cheek nature of the original song. She hated the misinterpretation that she was really that superficial...and then she just gleefully puts this out there in 2022.

I'm definitely not defending the pictures themselves. They're people with some terrible politics...and these are more than just polite photos. Geri's hanging off Nadine Dorries like they've been best pals for a decade. However. Has Geri actually changed? I've honestly always found her to be ball of contradictions in that sense. Her Thatcher fandom came during the same era Geri was being vocally supportive of the gay community. And this gets forgotten in 2022, but Geri's support of gay fans was far more rare in that time...coming when most artists just kept their mouth shut about the subject...and far better respected artists like Eminem and Prince were making homophobic comments. Nadine Dorries has fought for abstinence-only education. On the total opposite end, Geri's work with the UN was for education on contraception. And let's also not forget that Geri's Ugenia Lavender books had the last thing a true conservative would include in their work...a gay child. So. Look. I don't know her mind and her heart. I'm just basing this off the evidence I've seen. This is a woman who once claimed to be a big fan of Marilyn Monroe...without having seen any of her films. I'm not sure Geri's politics are anything but the most surface understanding of things. Is ignorance an excuse? No. Not really. But I've known a number of people who have run the social media of various celebs...and I think you'd be surprised how many are oblivious to the actual policies of famous politicians they recognize. Maybe Geri learns something from this.

Honestly, it's mostly an age ceiling thing. The US music industry is set up to where by the time a major artist gets around 40, it's time retire, go on greatest hits tours, or do the occasional mentoring appearance on singing talent shows. You could point to a few outliers...(like that one time in 1999 that Cher got a big hit while in her 50s)...but they're rare. Beyond that...while it was a big hit in a lot of other places, I do think American Life was pretty damaging to Madonna in the US. Music was the last album era that truly felt like she owned the music scene. The American Life single arrived in the US...and was pretty much immediately placed on 'worst song ever' lists. MTV and VH1's smarmier shows of the time really tainted the whole thing. People hated the rap. Even though the original video was replaced, it had already gotten a ton of press. This very inaccurate perception got out there that Madonna had released an album full of her perceptions on war. I don't think she ever totally recovered. Yes, both Hung Up and 4 Minutes were chart/radio hits...but I'm not sure they're truly signature songs of hers in the US in the way they are the rest of the world. And it's a bit telling that those singles' follow-ups performed so poorly (even though I think they're rather good).

I'll admit my first reaction to this rerecording was...why? But okay. Sounds like Bryan's having the same trouble with owning his masters that Taylor Swift was (in fact, he says he got this idea from Taylor). This version seems only slightly different from the original...and as such, I do like the original slightly better. The opening of the original seems to have a little more punch...and Mel's laugh (huh-huh!) is gone from the end of this one...aw. But. Though it was done quick and cheap, this video honestly is cute...and Mel brings a lot of spark to it. Ultimately, I guess I'm just glad Mel's still on the track. Some of you may remember when Bryan released Anthology and replaced Mel with...Pamela Anderson (?!). Not trying to attack Pam...as the world's certainly been mean enough to that woman. But. Mel's take is so obviously 100% better. Pam's version sounds like a regular woman who was singing along to the song in her car.

Though. I say all that while still thinking they may be a bit unlikely to release that much material at once. Part of me thinks they're more aware of the demand for their unreleased material than they sometimes let on...and there's a plan to stagger out releases for the rest of their lives.

I realize Biff somewhat implied some of his unused material for Forever might be on an anniversary release of the album. But I'm not sure if that's the best use of the unreleased songs. This will probably be unpopular, but I honestly would question the need for a Forever25. And that's not a critique of the album (which I like just fine). Spice and Spiceworld were definitive pop albums that helped define what music was in 1996-1998. Forever was two and a half years of build up only for the group to immediately abandon the project after release. Is there much to commemorate? What I'd kinda prefer for them to do is remaster and release the Biff material and four Kennedy songs...and couple those on a release alongside Goodbye and My Strongest Suit. Basically, take all the four piece material with the original collaborators...and go ahead and release it next year. It'd add up to about ten tracks. Why go this route? My guess is marketing "the lost Spice Girls album/the album that could have been" would generate more buzz than pairing the material with an album that is so synonymous with the fall of the group. Sidestep the negativity that comes with that era. Let the unreleased stuff stand on its own.

I guess we'll never know...but I'm not sure they were necessarily looking for the "best" songs. Here's what I mean. Since they invited Neyo to take part, I think there's an indication they were open to furthering their sound at one time in the creative process. Mel C has also said she liked some of these other songs they recorded...whereas she didn't like Voodoo. My guess is what they ended up picking wasn't necessarily the best, but rather a conscious decision to pick what best recaptured the old sound. But yeah. I definitely agree on the Headlines video. It's such a dud creatively. Considering they got Jamie King as their tour director to make their show the best of the best...their team really should have shown that same level of quality control to the video. Had the video been this big, beautiful thing like Goodbye's...I actually think the song itself would be better regarded today. My memory is the video shoot and the video release weren't far apart, so I guess there just wasn't the production time to make something grand. A last thought on Headlines. Looking back on it nearly 15 years later, I've never stopped liking the song...but I do think there's something of a lyrical missed opportunity. I think the concept of a big love song from the perspective of hugely famous people is actually fairly clever. Like...I love you enough to take you on this tabloid journey with me. But beyond the first three lines of the chorus...the rest of the song isn't really about that. More a standard love song.

Interesting to hear about Get Out Of Your Head and Thank You. With those two tracks, that would mean the girls had at least six new songs they were toying with for the Greatest Hits. Then, beyond that...we know George Michael was working on that Christmas track that didn't meet the deadline (eventually released on his own)...and Neyo was asked to participate in creating some new music (scheduling conflict prevented it). Biff claimed in the David Sinclair book that he had about five old demos he wanted to give to an eventual Greatest Hits project. It makes you wonder how big their team was aiming to make the Greatest Hits project at one time...and how it all got scaled back to just Headlines and Voodoo.

The biggest question for me is...how much unreleased material could there really be from this era? They seemingly had no other fresh material to use as b-sides for Stop and Viva Forever...and Spice Invaders is as obvious a "just run into the studio and come up with literally anything" situation as they come for the Spice Up Your Life b-side. Can't Stay Tonight is from this era...but did we ever get confirmation that anyone besides Mel C got around to taking part in a demo? We know Stannard was listening to Likely Stories (See You Next Tuesday) in the lead-up to Spice25. It makes me wonder if they might have held over that song from the Spice recording sessions for Spiceworld25...just for lack of material. I think a song called Dingeling shows up on ASCAP from this era. But I don't think the girls or their producers have ever mentioned it. Mel B's early copy of the Spice Up Your Life single had Strong Enough on it...but I don't think that song's really screaming for an official release. My guess is we'll likely get Walk Of Life and Step To Me...and maybe Sound Off? I guess they could include the studio version of Leader of the Gang, but that calls into question if they want to drudge up the Gary Glitter connection again.

Let's say we're living in a hypothetical world where everything can get worked out with record companies and Mel could just use whichever songs she wants from her back catalogue. I would definitely be on the side of putting out a Best Of collection over a Greatest Hits. Frankly, I'd do this: 1. When You're Gone 2. Goin Down 3. Northern Star 4. Never Be The Same Again 5. I Turn To You 6. Independence Day 7. Reason 8. Next Best Superstar 9. You'll Get Yours 10. First Day Of My Life 11. Think About It 12. Stupid Game 13. Lovin' You 14. Anymore 15. Who I Am 16. Blame It On Me 17. In and Out of Love 18. New Song I realize that's leaving out a top ten with Here It Comes Again...but does anyone especially like that one? I'd just see a release like this as a chance to showcase her stronger material...ignoring the fact that her single choices were sometimes compromised over the years for this reason or that. Just a "here's what you've been missing" sort of release to accompany the handful of big hits on there. Plus, it's just a good showcase for how versatile she is as an artist.

Good topic! I won't go through every album era, but here's a few off the top of my head. Geri - Summertime (Schizophonic). I wouldn't put it in single consideration out of the Schizophonic material, but at the very least I think it towers over You're In A Bubble. I would slot it somewhere in the latter half of the album and then end Schizophonic with Someone's Watching Over Me. While Geri has stronger songs, I do think Summertime and Goodnight Kiss are the best use of her vocal abilities in this album era. Geri - Getting Better (Scream If You Wanna Go Faster). I feel like no one really ever talks about this song...but to me, there's enough effort put into this that it seems like it was intended for something greater than a b-side. My guess (which isn't based on much) is that this was supposed to accompany the Therapy film she was shopping around at the time. "We need a little therapy, c'mon" Yes? No? Anyway. I think the common wisdom would be to replace either Shake Your Bootie Cutie or Heaven and Hell (Being Geri Halliwell)...but I'll pretty much always take loudly, proudly bizarre over unmemorable. So I'd slot Getting Better on the album in place of either Don't Call Me Baby or Lovey Dovey Stuff. Emma - Invincible. (A Girl Like Me) To me, the production here lacks a certain oomph...but a more rocky, amped-up mix would have actually been single material. I know a different artist actually did release this song as a single around the same time...and it went nowhere. But. With the right artist (Emma) and the right mix (it wasn't that far off), I think this one had the makings of an early 2000s classic. It just sounds to me like something that you'd hear in a commercial for one of the Now compilations. Melanie C - Follow Me (Northern Star). I've always thought this song was gorgeous. Way too good to be left off Northern Star. My guess is she was trying to get a good variety of themes and sounds for the album...and this one was a smidge similar to Closer. But I still would have included it...preferably in place of If That Were Me (Follow Me is superior to that one in every way as far as I'm concerned). I'd even go so far as to say I would have been up for Follow Me as the 5th single off the album...and I like it better than all the singles off Reason, Beautiful Intentions, and This Time (though not all the album tracks in general).

Oh, I still remember that super dramatic call from a friend...Geri left the group! We already had tickets to see the girls on the American leg of their tour in July. I liked Geri, though my favorite members were Mel B and Emma...and I already recognized Mel C's importance to the songs (my fandom of her as an individual kicked in with Northern Star). So. Honestly, when I got that call...my bigger concern was that the group would split or cancel their tour. I was definitely taken aback by Geri's leaving. Living in America, I guess the last round of major appearances the group had taken was the Spice World promo around January or so. The girls were showing a united front and Geri was just as united as any of the rest of them. It wasn't until years later that I would see interviews and performances leading up to May 1998 where Geri seemed fairly aloof. In June 1998, MTV aired a clip of the four piece performing the opening show of the tour's American leg...and that did a lot to confirm to me the show would go on. When I finally caught them in July, the show was fab. They seemed as good as ever...and I was game for whatever music this lineup could give us. It wouldn't be until a few years later that I would realize the focus and musical direction that Geri actually brought to the group. Anyway. Obviously, I wish Geri didn't leave when she did. I consider Spiceworld one of the true perfect big fun pop albums...deserving of mention next to Madonna's True Blue, Janet Jackson's Control, and Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual. Top to bottom...perfect fun pop records. Had the five piece continued, I think it would have been natural their sales would continue a downslide. The pop landscape was starting to get crowded, and they no longer solely owned a corner of the market. But. Spiceworld is the result of the girls and their collaborators at their creative peak...and I wish we could have seen what else they could have done together. While I mostly like Forever, it's not the product of a united group.

This will be an unpopular opinion, but knowing the songs she had available...I still would have picked Not Such An Innocent Girl as the lead single. Do I consider it the best song on the album? No. I think that's I Wish. And Like That is the song I revisit the most off the album. But my general feeling is Like That plays a bit more like a fan favorite...than a guaranteed hit. And I Wish sounds like a second/third single. Not Such An Innocent Girl (to me) just sounds like an album launcher. It's immediately catchy in a way a lead single needs to be...and I think we would have seen it perform very differently if it was released in the first half of 2000...or at least in a year when a barrage of solo Spice releases weren't cancelling out each other's chances of success. I think releasing A Mind Of Its Own as the follow-up was probably a mistake, though. I do actually think the song's single worthy...and I could see a NSAIG - AMOIO - I Wish - IOU singles run making the most sense on paper. But when the album underperformed, they needed to realize that AMOIO wasn't a song that could reverse the project's fortunes. They should have gone for broke at that point and gone with their best bet...I Wish.

I kinda hope they're not really saying that behind the scenes. Here's the deal. If I'm not mistaken, none of them (in addition to Biff) have ever said anything good about Voodoo. They also removed the song off the 2007 tour setlist...with Mel B claiming it was because they were struggling with the choreography. If they really did believe in the song and wanted to showcase it, they could have pretty easily changed the choreography. The steps weren't commanded to them by the gods. And it's not like it would have been out of character for them to just wing the performance. So. They clearly didn't feel much more strongly about the song than the fanbase. Song For Her? Wasn't the TV show idea long abandoned by the time its theme song leaked? It's not like they were so proud of this that they were making any efforts to get it heard. Feed Your Love? I don't remember the overall reaction to this being negative, really. It was about right for a pretty good (but fairly low-key) little unreleased song that was part of a somewhat muted rollout. So it really comes down to the Headlines reception. From what we've heard from behind the scenes, the girls and Biff honestly did really like this track at one time. So. Okay. They may have been disappointed with how the fans perceived this one song..........15 years ago.

I'm halfway into the second episode. I would never watch this without the two of them involved, buuut....I do have to say Mel and Emma seem to be having a blast and are really funny on it. The set-up of the show plays well to their personalities. They're being forced into challenges...and having to think on their feet...and their scrambling to figure out what to do is actually really cute. I mean, yeah, I'd rather them be recording music or touring...but I do prefer this over another judging gig. For me, it's a better use of their vibe. As for the show, one thought keeps coming back to me. The rest of the cast is fairly young, and it's pretty well established that they...um...er...well. Let's just say I don't think they're going to know much about music from before 10/15 years ago. Are they even going to know who the Spice Girls are? The Spices' US exposure isn't great these days. Wannabe's here and there...Mel B had the stint on Got Talent...and the Beckhams pop up now and then. But. I feel like you kinda have to seek out the Spices a bit these days. So. Beats me how it's all gonna go down on this show...

Yeah. I'll admit that my first thought on seeing this trailer's quick glimpses of the two of them was..."wow. They look fab. Wish they were lookin fab in some sort of music project..." The show doesn't look like my sort of thing at all, but I will watch it for the two of them. I do think there's a silver lining to this...and that's having some Spices associated with a juggernaut like Netflix. Could this partnership...maybe...lead to a more interesting project down the road? That's my hope anyway. And I will say I have several friends who are obsessed with this show. It has its following. I do rank this a bit higher than the Coinmaster thing.

Yeah. The subject of how the music industry could make or break an artist at their will has always been an interesting subject to me. To me, the Spices' US career trajectory has a lot in common with Cyndi Lauper's and Paula Abdul's. All three exploded onto the scene with huge first albums with multiple hits. That initial fame seemed to propel them through second album eras. Then...all three had third album eras that were doomed...despite the fact they all carried very commercial material. It just seemed like the promotional machine of MTV/radio had quit on all of them. You could claim the audience moved on. Or was their fate being controlled? I get the Spices' situation with Forever is a complicated one with a few factors at play...but I literally never heard Holler on the radio and MTV definitely didn't give it an inch beyond (a probably contractually required) debut on TRL. Then, TRL turned around and named it the worst video in their history which was absurd. Anyway. It's not that I think a whole doc should be about that angle. But if they did a little multi-part series...maybe the Spice Girls story could be a springboard to look into a few subjects relevant to music in general...the evolution of commercial endorsements, industry reactions to an act being so outwardly pro-woman and pro-LGBT, how the music industry makes or breaks artists, etc.

The documentary idea does have a bit of "least effort possible" feel to it...which is, of course, par for the course with them. However. I do agree with Jay that they need to up their global visibility...and a doc on Netflix honestly would do it. I've been in a few stores lately...checking out all the graphic ts..and it's really striking to me how much more stuff there is for the other 90s pop acts over the Spices. There were shirts for the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Britney, Hanson, New Kids On The Block, En Vogue, TLC. Action figures and bobbleheads for most of the same acts. Granted, nearly all of these acts (except Britney and NSYNC) have toured through my city recently...or they're about to. But it's also noticeable that BSB still gets I Want It That Way played in major commercials...like the song never went out of style. If you go to my downtown, the music pouring out of all the bars is NSYNC, Britney, and BSB. By comparison...the Spices just have the Lego thing and these Coinmaster ads...which...don't seem to have been noticed by much of anyone but the fanbase? Point being. Somebody's doing a pretty good job of keeping these other acts' legacies alive. And the ball's getting dropped on the Spices.

Also. As much as we'd like to think that M's legacy of amazing songs/videos will outlast anything that's happening now...I'm not sure that's quite how history works. Maybe this is overthinking it, but I'll lay it out anyway. I've always found a lot of parallels between Madonna and 1930s film star Mae West. Madonna released the Sex book. West wrote and performed the play, Sex. Both were beautiful women challenging censorship and pushing the limits of society's views on sex. They fought for their art. Both had/have huge gay followings. Both had brains to back it all up. Madonna wrote the majority of her hits. West wrote her films. But what eventually happened with West is she became something of a parody of herself. Her appearance became bizarre. Her films became terrible. She was overtly nasty to up-and-coming actresses. The oddity of her behavior on set and in public became legendary. 40+ years after her death, West's bizarre later years are honestly as famous as her screen legend early years. It might not go the same way for Madonna. But...it could...

I'm admittedly not up on my British newspapers/tabloids...but...is Daily Mail especially reliable? If JJ Abrams was really shopping around a Spice Girls doc to Netflix, I'd kinda think a Hollywood Reporter or Variety might report on it. But. Anyway. For now, let's just pretend there's some truth to this. I'd be a little split on yet another documentary. I feel like Giving You Everything delivered as much as we can honestly expect out of a group so guarded. I feel like the story of them has been told...a lot. So a doc would need to dive into some interesting new territory. To me, one interesting angle of their story that no one's ever tackled is their forced fall from success in the US market. In 1998, they had two albums sitting in the top ten albums chart...and US radio, MTV, and VH1 was basically pretending they didn't exist. Radio/video play was nearly nonexistent for the clear biggest pop act in the country. The thought of any of them having another US hit by 1999 seemed impossible. What happened? My guess has always been that record companies for the homegrown upcoming pop acts knew the Spices were their competition...and worked behind the scenes to remove the threat. Whatever the case may be, there has to be some interesting dynamics in the 90s pop music world to explore there. Furthermore, what was at play in the Grammy's public refusal to nominate them? Their other pop contemporaries of the time got nominations.