Forever (2000) - Spice Girls

It's 3 for 3 baby. Here's the final part in my little triptych, a review of the Spice Girls' third and (probably) final studio album. Or, to better convey the route I'm about to take, an article called 'How production can make or break an album/band/career'.

With the exception of Goodbye (conceived and released over a year before the rest of the album took shape), Forever marks a departure from the Spice Girls' longtime producers of Absolute and Stannard & Rowe. And, boy, don't we know it. Chasing a more 'mature' image, and to help usher the Spice Girls into the 21st century, they sought the assistance of famed r&b producer Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins and his brother 'Uncle Freddie' to help manifest the majority of their third album. Together, the duo doused Forever in their particular brand of lowkey, staccato electronica and faux picked guitar sounds programmed like a player piano, not to mention the arbitrary, rhythmic mutterings from the producer, unnecessarily annotating the lead vocal performances as they occur, presumably aiming to sound like what the singers hear in their own headphones while recording. It is a massive shift in direction, not just in the actual sound, but in the values that brought the Spice Girls to the forefront of pop culture - for nothing the band ever put out before bore such heavy-handed watermarking by a musical contributor other than themselves.

So where do I stand on the issue of production tags? Well, while I feel it is extremely important for credit to be correctly attributed and given where due, I find production tags to be the audio equivalent of a blot on the landscape; a musical eyesore. I just remember what an idiot Jessie J sounds reciting "Coconut Man" and "Moon-head" at the start of Price Tag, and that's really all I need to vote firmly in opposition to them. Ultimately, though I believe in transparency around who is responsible for what in music, it should not come at the cost of the music itself. Therefore, if a producer wants to lay his signature onto a track, it should be done in the production itself, not by branding their name all over the songs.

This brings me to my biggest fault with Rodney Jerkins - Darkchild has such, SUCH a distinctive sound, such instantly recognisable timbres, beats, patterns to his work, especially in the y2k era, that he simply does not need to stamp his name all over it. It's him, clearly, so who the fuck else would it be? Just like how you know immediately when a Hex Hector remix is playing, it is the same with Darkchild. Except Hex Hector manages it with, as far as I'm concerned, a hell of a lot more dignity and integrity.

Add the Spice Girls to the mix, and the can of worms is prised all the way open. These are the Spice Girls, the torchbearers of Girl Power, whose whole career up until this point has been about female empowerment and not relying on men for shit. And here they are, being overtly creatively submissive to a man who is hellbent on plastering his name all over their record. All because they want to pursue a trendy new sound that, frankly, doesn't suit them. The Spice Girls were not, are not, and never will be the British answer to Destiny's Child; they are playing in different ballparks. So collaborating with Darkchild was never going to be the best course of action - they effectively alienated their fanbase. A fanbase that was already raw, feeling betrayed by Geri's exit; if anything they should have doubled down on their trademark pop sound and unique branding, not ricochet off into a world of soulless programming (there are 0 instrument credits for tracks 1-8, not a single one).

And they certainly should not have allowed a man to mumble his own name over the top of their vocal performances. Geri would never have stood for that.

1. If You Wanna Have Some Fun
2. Goodbye
3. Wasting My Time
4. Get Down With Me
5. Oxygen
6. Time Goes By
7. Holler
8. Let Love Lead The Way
9. Weekend Love
10. Right Back At Ya
11. Tell Me Why

Total Points: 38/55
Average Score: 5.09

Rating-wise, it's nowhere near the heights that Spice hit - but how much of this is down to production choices, and how much is just down to the quality of the songs themselves? Well, it's no coincidence that my 2 highest scorers are Jerkins-free affairs, as is the highest scoring of the album's 4 minimalist, down-tempo r&b ballads, Oxygen.

Goodbye features more out of necessity than choice, being the only single without a parent album, and it really doesn't belong. It feels rather tacked onto the end, more like a bonus track on top of their established set menu of 10. That said, its one of the best moments of Forever, with a full-bodied sound, robust harmonies and soulful delivery, encapuslating what feels like a whole CD's worth of truly heartfelt feeling into its 4 and a half minutes runtime. It is topped only by If You Wanna Have Some Fun, a much funkier portrait of stripped-back r&b than what Darkchild favours, here brought about by the far less stoic and systematic Jam & Lewis. Notably, it is the only song on the album with a palpable sense of fun, which feels like a wild thing to say about the Spice Girls. Half of their back catalogue can be filed broadly under the heading 'fun', so what happened? Sophistication and fun are wholly compatible; this track proves it. It's bouncy but not in a hollow, tinny way (see: Get Down With Me), and it boasts the most personality exhibited by the girls since Spiceworld. On top of that, it's also extremely catchy.

Wasting My Time and Get Down With Me are two songs that manage to hold up in spite of their production, though the former definitely suffers less from the stark, dry formula that Darkchild bestows upon the soundscape. Both songs are upbeat and distinct enough to stick in your head after a listen-through, though it can be hard to remember which is which; a lot of the songs have similar sounding names. This is less of an issue with the writing (though it still is slightly; where's the variety of subject matter and distinction of themes?) and more of an issue with the monotonous sound cast over all of Forever by, as I keep reiterating, the production. Don't get me wrong, I love a concise musical vision, but would you rather have many different plates of delicious tapas or multiple plates of the same one type of tapas? Variety, as they say, is the spice of life, and we're here left with quite a bland meal. The Plain Girls, rather than the Spice Girls.

Songs that unfortunately aren't granted the same, slightly more positive fate are Tell Me Why and, the biggest disappointment of all, Right Back At Ya. I literally have nothing to say about the former. I do not remember anything about it, and it was only yesterday that I last heard it. But Right Back At Ya, I know in full, every lyric, every ad lib, the entire rap, because the leaked original pop version, produced by the team behind Say You'll Be There, Absolute, is part of my regular Spice rotation. This version is, in short, the direction that Forever should have been taken in. The sound is familiar but clearly evolved, the content reminiscent but fresh, referencing the past but ultimately saying "we're still here, we've still got it, we're coming back stronger than ever before." And Uncle Freddie's feeble attempt at reimagining it to sit alongside the likes of Holler doesn't cut it. All life has left Mel B's vocal cords in this inferior version, and it falls as flat as a pancake.

Another disappointment is that the incredible W.O.M.A.N, performed live alongside a take on the original (better) version of Right Back At Ya during their 1999 Christmas In Spiceworld concert* is nowhere to be found. The swishiest, most disco-tastic they ever sounded, this would have been a far more preferable and palatable route for them to take than what actually occurred. Lyrics such as 'now we're industry players, wearing g-strings, looking mean and putting music to beats' represent everything the girls had within their grasp for the taking. Furthermore, its middle 8 is one of the best, if not THE best, I've ever heard, in any song, ever. And no, it would not fit in, among what we eventually got with their third album, and that is exactly why I'm so frustrated! It would have added some juice, some charisma, some electricity, some fun, some actual spice back into the Spice Girls - is that so much to ask for?

*These performances are free to view on the Spice Girls' official youtube channel, at long last. I highly recommend checking them out and discovering what could have been. If nothing else, at least check out the 2 audience engagement peaks on W.O.M.A.N for the aforementioned apex of middle 8s and proof that Victoria can sing.

And then there's those 4 minimalist, down-tempo r&b ballads I mentioned, of which Oxygen comes out on top due to it's ethereal uniqueness and the fact it was the second of Jam & Lewis's two contributions. All 4 epitomise a very turn-of-the-millenium niche sound; the quietest of sine leads, the most over-reliant use of windchimes for 'atmosphere' and the meagrest implementation of percussion possible. Once again, it's variety that could have saved these rather similar 4 tracks, and in previous albums it's what helps separate the slower songs and give them each a distinct flavour. Think of 2 Become 1 or Too Much; they're afforded more personality because more personality was put into their creation, and the girls always made room to try different things out and experiment. Here, experimentation is absolutely off the table, and all 4 ballads (to be clear, I'm excluding Goodbye despite its lower tempo due to what I said about it feeling more like a bonus track and its lack of direct relationship to the rest of the album) are the generic and bland type that you can find on any other cookie-cutter girl band's album from this era of r&b. Oxygen is just a little more interesting than the rest.

So is Forever a bad album? I still don't know how to answer that. It is, for me, easily their worst album. I think it was destined for the label of sub-par the moment they decided to put all their eggs in the Holler basket. The switch from what everyone knew and loved was just too much sonic whiplash, no matter how trendy or refined the new sound was meant to be. Sure, it could have been saved if the trajectory that was set by W.O.M.A.N and the original Right Back At Ya had been followed (not to mention the feisty leaked demo Give You What You Want - I sure wish they had!) but then I imagine half the tracks would have been entirely different ones and, at that point, am I really talking about the same album?

That said, declaring Forever as ill-fated isn't entirely fair. It performed well, though obviously not lineup-of-5 well, and features several renowned beloved tracks. I even still count a couple among my all-time favourites. But at the same time, it's no coincidence that their least spicy, lowest energy, most subdued effort is the one that heralded the end. Of course, they would return as a full set of 5 in 2007, complete a sell-out tour and capitalise with a Greatest Hits that featured a highly underrated promotional single (and star in some great adverts for Tesco). And re-return in 2019 without Victoria (which, fair enough to her, she's found her niche in fashion and probably didn't need the stress or the money) for another big tour. So it's not even as if Forever represents a lasting, slightly soured impression of the girls. In reality, it came along only about 20% of the way through the time between their initial formation and their most recent project.

But, for this mini-arc on The Sound System, it is indeed the end! Thanks for sticking with me (if you did) - I kind of just went with the renaissance of a hyperfixation and this is what ensued. Who knows what will happen next!

Spiceworld (1997) - Spice Girls

"Don't you know it's going too fast? Racing so hard, you know it won't last."

The song Stop, from which this line was taken, is notoriously a thinly veiled dressing down of the Spice Girls' manager Simon Fuller, protesting that he's working them too hard, and that eventually something would have to give. By the time Stop was released as a single in 1998, something had given - they'd sacked him. But only 3 months later, something else would give; Geri Halliwell would leave the band mid-world tour, and change the trajectory of the Spice Girls forever. Now, I'm here to critique music, not act as a biographer, so you know I wouldn't be relaying any of this if it wasn't directly relevant to the sound, vibe and overall manifestation of the Spice Girl's second album, Spiceworld.

And yes, I'm following the Spice Girls canon - here comes round 2.

Remember how, in my review of Spice, I talked about the inevitability of its success? How the girls were all so hungry, so adamant and so ready to get out there and do their thing that there was no option but for it to blast the roof off? Spiceworld picks up where Spice left off, with absolutely no gap in the proceedings to digest or reflect. Spice's success directly led to the necessity for Spiceworld; the world wanted more, and they wanted it fast. So the girls did what they had to in order to sustain their momentum. The album was announced before any new songs had even been written, amongst talk of a movie, and the creation of the two entities eventually end up coinciding, songs being written and recorded on-set. I don't believe anything was even demoed - there couldn't have been time. And the result is a selection of bright, tutti-fruity pop songs that very much pertain to the essence of the Spice Girls, and deliver the message the world had come to expect them to deliver.

This is not to say that genuine sentiments don't exist within - in fact, I would argue that the surmounting pressure experienced by the girls, Geri in particular, sparked some of their best lyrics and most cerebral, relevant song topics (see Stop and Too Much). The album also featured a more diverse range of inspiration, with a latin pop influence infiltrating on a couple of songs, as well as Motown, doo-wop and jazz. But these elements don't really diversify what the Spice Girls put out with Spiceworld - they combine into a kind of rainbowtastic showcase of the media's five favourite everyday lasses, never really leaning into the edge that caught the public's eye in the first place. The music isn't bad - there are some excellent, catchy, very on-brand moments of brilliance. But it's clear that the girls were not granted much opportunity to dig deep, and the slightly-too-new, plastic sheen that is omnipresent throughout Spiceworld demonstrates this, as does its slightly colour-by-numbers array of songs.

1. Never Give Up On The Good Times
2. Saturday Night Divas
3. Too Much
4. Stop
5. Move Over
6. Viva Forever
7. Denying
8. Do It
9. Spice Up Your Life
10. The Lady Is A Vamp

Total Points: 30/50
Average Score: 6.0

But, as the upper-mid score indicates, that does not make this a bad album, by any means. It's just not as gritty and daring as the moments I enjoy most within Spice. Thematically, we're in largely familiar territory, plus the girls are well settled into their vocal ability and only more deft at peppering their personalities throughout, even when the material doesn't invite much scope for character definition. It's the Spice Girls themselves that hold up this album - their real voices, girl-next-door personas and genuine input - that make Spiceworld decent; if autotune had been brought forward for 1997 and applied to these songs, it would render them utterly generic.

Take Stop for example. The lines are divvied out in their usual equitable way (a little bit more to Mel C because she can handle it, a bit less to Geri who lacks control and Victoria whose voice is a little hollow), and the harmonies are as even on the chorus and complex on the bridge as the corresponding segments are on Who Do You Think You Are - but the sound is notably tamer. It's only really because Mel B gets to rasp out the bridge and Mel C can do some belting that it's distinct as a Spice Girls song, and not any one of the numerous other 90's-does-60's pop offerings of the era. Similarly, Viva Forever is beautifully performed, but there's no chutzpah within its instrumentation or even its construction. In reality, it's the subtle aloofness in the vocals and the unique timbre of layered harmonies that allow it's simplicity to shine.

But, even with heaps of personality in the performance, the weaker songs tend to be so because their content is too directly interpreted. This is why Do It doesn't quite 'do it' for me; it's so literal. Had more time been taken to flesh out the essence of the song and come up with a way of conveying it that wasn't so lacking in creativity, it would have been much stronger. Just because it acts strong doesn't mean it is - sure, it has a bold, tough kind of sound that exudes confidence and empowerment, but this is a veneer of bravado for a concept that's only been explored skin deep. In fact, it is sonically very similar to the Spice era (but only widely released as a Spiceworld25 extra track) Step To Me, but Do It is comparably sterile in terms of potency and manifestation. Its message, though valid as a message, has merely been superficially churned out, and is recited almost mindlessly, from start to finish, with no adjustment for artistry. It's just straight-up in-your-face jargon, the likes of which the girls could have spewed out on the fly in any radio interview. It illustrates the overarching insufficiency with Spiceworld; that over-saturation leads to stagnation. You get out what you put in, and when you're running on fumes, you end up with a feeble output. If they'd had a decent gap in their schedule, or at least a few days a week to touch down and process things, they'd have been able to get their teeth stuck into the themes they were interested in, and write a whole bunch more songs, and tracks like Do It would never have made the cut.

Spice Up Your Life represents another case of riding the hype-train and delivering what is expected, without really generating anything majorly provoking. Its chord structure becomes tiresome before the midway point, and the sung-in-unison verses and general approach of shouting out catchphrases just don't scratch any itches. Move Over, though just as filled with buzzwords, at least manages some moments of sumptuous and unusually built harmony, with Emma taking the low 'yeah, yeah, yeah's of the chorus to beguiling effect when you notice it. Additionally, it's shorter, snappier and less of a cliche than Spice Up Your Life, with a broader range of influences coming together to produce a more textured listening experience. The same can't be said for Lady Is A Vamp, however, whose jumble of lyrical references are slapped over a track that sounds like a reject from Chicago. The resulting song, though not remotely lacking in vibrance and fun, feels more like a parody than an original song, and does nothing to bring together the rest of the album.

Gentler tracks, like Too Much and Saturday Night Divas, contain a plethora of sultry and stirring elements that award them, as well as the album at length, an ample boost in quality and intrigue. With Too Much, the incremental chord pattern and the luxe string arrangement open up a deep, immersive headspace for the listener to swim in, and it manages the tough task of sounding unlike anything else in the mainstream at the time. Saturday Night Divas is the coolest track on the record, with chilled out, nonchalant verses and bewitchingly limber bridges, where Emma rises to the challenge of swinging her voice around betwixt highs and lows, and pulls it off breezily. The repetitive nature of the refrains are, unfortunately, a bit of a let down on an otherwise sleek and grown-up track that feels perhaps like the most natural successor to the material on their first album; still savvy and chic, but a pronounced evolution nonetheless.

It's Never Give Up On The Good Times which is the true highlight of this record - rather than being comparable and therefore potentially inferior to something on Spice, it goes for something Spice didn't attempt in any way. Third-person story telling, a polished disco beat, an increasingly progressive structure as it advances; it takes the fibre of the Spice Girls and threads them through the eye of an altogether new needle - so we can still perceive their zest and velocity, but the result is an entirely new experience. Perhaps for the same reason, the B-sides of the Spiceworld era are also strong; Outer Space Girls and Walk Of Life are somewhat novelty in nature (probably why they were never considered for the album itself, which tends to eschew anything more gimmicky than the schtick of the girls themselves), but it's their novelty that results in their triumph. It's impossible to come across as a pastiche of your own stereotype if you've switched proceedings up for a kitschy, sci-fi themed song instead of your usual Girl Power stuff. Furthermore, rhapsodising on a subject that's not 'serious' or 'topical' means that it doesn't matter if the lyrics don't get a chance to cut so deep. Even Spice Invaders, the lowest of low-effort filler tracks, has a candid authenticity and overt lack of direction that everything present on Spiceworld was too self-conscious to encroach upon. When the pressure was off, when they weren't expected to be what the world expected them to be, the magic could surface, even through the rigamarole of overwork and constant media noise.

Spice, no matter how you look at it, was always going to be a tough act to follow, and I genuinely believe that Spiceworld fulfilled this task as well as it could given that the Spice Girls were global superstars at this point, so in demand by different channels, radio stations and sponsors that they could barely keep track of everywhere they'd been in any given week. It is by no means perfect, and I'm very much aware that in pointing out its varying flaws, I've probably been hypercritical to make a point of what they are. But anything that feels disproportionately incendiary on my part should be compared to the apex reached with Spice. Spiceworld is a great album, but Spice was subjectively better, and that comparison is always going to be a consideration when looking at this band through the necessary worldwide public lens.

In a way, I'm surprised I've found so much to say about it, because it really did feel like it just happened: like it was almost auto-piloted into existence and that this kind of analysis is kind of moot. Why spend time breaking down a project that wasn't thought-through so reverently from its conception? And there it is again - insulting a perfectly fine album by overdoing the analysis!

The bottom line is this: it is what it is, and what it is did every part of the job it set out to do. It doesn't do to pick it apart any more, it's just a fun pop album by the biggest superstars of its time. And that's all it needs to be.