Songoftheday 8/3/21 - Listen little child there will come a day, when you will be able to say never mind the pain...

 

 

"Goodbye" - Spice Girls

from the album Forever (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from the Spice Girls, whose second album and movie tie-in Spiceworld had spun off a trio of top-40 pop hits in America in 1998 with "Spice Up Your Life", "Stop", and the top ten "Too Much".  But by the close of the year, Geri Halliwell, or "Ginger Spice", had left the group citing exhaustion but would soon embark on a solo career. The remaining four - Melanie "Scary" Brown, Melanie "Sporty" Chisholm, Emma "Baby" Bunton, and Victoria "Posh" Beckham carried on, at first recording a single that would presumably lead off their next record. "Goodbye", written by the group with producers Richard Stannard and Matt Rowe, was a grandly-staged ballad with pleasantries allegedly to smooth over Halliwell's departure as an amicable event (or perhaps to save the brand). Rushed in time for the Christmas season, the single got a great reception worldwide, and enough of their American fans bought the single to place them on the pop chart. It is telling that the record is sprinkled with the Girls singing "No, No, No, No"...

In America, "Goodbye" came in and stalled right under the pop top ten in December of 1998. Internationally, the song was a much bigger hit, scoring an eighth #1 hit in their native UK (their entire singles output save "Stop" which stopped at #2). It topped the chart in Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand, and reached the top ten in Sweden (#2), Finland (#2), Hungary (#2), Australia (#3), the Netherlands (#5), Denmark (#5), Norway (#6), Greece (#7), Switzerland (#8), and Spain (#8). The single also went to #15 in Canada, and #17 in Germany. The song would eventually appear on the next Spice Girls record, but that was delayed until 2000, and while Forever went to #2 in the UK, it stopped at #39 in the U.S. (which is still remarkable for the act was basically forgotten by then). 

By the time the group's next single, "Holler", was released, American radio had simply let them go, even with a Darkchild production that tried to make them sound like Destiny's Child, and the song didn't even make the Hot 100 pop chart in Billboard magazine, only "bubbling under" at #112. The remixes of the track did connect with their big LGBT fanbase, and it went to #31 on Billboard's Dance Club Play tally. However, internationally it did much better, going to #1 in the UK as a "double-sided" single with the ballad "Let Love Lead The Way", while making the top ten in Australia (#2), New Zealand (#2), Italy (#3), Ireland (#3), Portugal (#3), Norway (#4), Denmark (#4), Iceland (#4), Spain (#5), Greece (#5), Finland (#6), and Sweden (#8). Tellingly, there were no other singles from the album, and the Spice Girls were in effect put on ice. 

Despite protestations to the opposite during the promotion of "Goodbye", the group splintered with all five Spice Girls releasing solo material, and all being quite successful at it. Halliwell was the first one out of the gate of course, with her Schizophonic album coming out in June of 1999. Reaching #4 on the British Albums chart and #42 in the American Billboard 200 sales tally, the record spun off four huge hits in Britain, with debut "Look At Me" at #2 followed by three #1 hits in "Mi Chico Latino", "Lift Me Up", and "Bag It Up". The following year, Geri returned with the delectably-named Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, which landed another British #1 hit with her cover of "It's Raining Men". However, her third disco in 2004, Passion, while placing a top ten single with "Ride It" (UK #4), stalled down at #41 on the British Albums chart, and Halliwell and EMI Records parted ways.

Melanie Chisholm's first solo set appeared in October of 1999, with Northern Star also making it to #4 on the British Albums chart and making the Billboard 200 at #108. Her first solo single, the rock jam "Goin' Down", peaked at #4 on the UK Singles list, and five of the cuts from the set made the British chart, with two - "Never Be The Same Again" and "I Turn To You", going all the way to #1. The later song also went to #1 on Billboard's American Dance Club chart. She went on to score a couple more top ten British pop hits, with "Here It Comes Again" in 2003 (UK #7) and "Next Best Superstar" in 2005 (UK #10). She's been the most prolific (and the most enjoyable) of the Girls, with her eighth and most recent studio album Melanie C arriving on the British Albums top ten at #8 in 2020.

The next member to release a solo set was Melanie Brown, whose Hot set came out in 2000. It made the British Albums Top-40 at #28, but didn't do anything in the States. Lead single "I Want You Back", featuring Missy Elliott, went to #1 in England, but surprisingly stiffed in the U.S. Although four top-40 hits in the UK came from the record, it was consider a failure and Mel was dropped as well. Going indie, a second record in 2005, L.A. State Of Mind (to reference her move to the States), saw its lead single "Today" stall at the maddening #41 position on the British chart. 

Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton had actually appeared on a #2 hit in 1999 from duo Tin Tin Out, a remake of the Edie Brickell folk-rock single "What I Am".  Emma put out her first solo album A Girl Like Me in April of 2001, and like Geri and Mel C she came in at #4 on the British Albums chart. The first single from the set, "What Took You So Long?", topped the British singles chart. A second record, Free Me, also made the British Albums top ten in 2004, with top ten singles "Free Me" and "Maybe" both hitting that level on the American Dance Club Play chart in Billboard. However after her third disc in 2006, Life In Mono, stalling at #65 in the UK with first single, a cover of the 60s classic "Downtown", hitting #3 but doing nothing else, it would be her last solo set until 2019, when My Happy Place came in at #11 on the British Albums list. 

Finally, Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham appeared on the #2 hit from dance act Truesteppers with Dane Bowers (of the British boyband Another Level) on "Out Of Your Mind", but waited until October of 2001 to release her own self-titled album. The record went to #10 on the British albums chart, and spawned a pair of top ten hits in Britain with "Not Such An Innocent Girl" and "A Mind Of Its Own". But even though she returned in 2003 with an even bigger single, the double-set "This Groove" and "Let Your Head Go" which went to #3 in England, her record company dissolved and she was on her own, and she hasn't released a solo song since. 

By 2008, with all five Spice Girls without a major record contract, they did what many older pop acts end up doing, and reunited for a tour and a greatest hits set. The tour was massively successful, selling out in the UK and in America, and the Greatest Hits getting to #2 in Britain and #93 in the U.S. (which is deceptive, since initially it was only sold in Victoria's Secret lingerie stores, and those sales didn't count on the chart, even though they sold hundreds of thousands of copies). A new song recorded for the set, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)", placed at #90 on the Hot 100 in America, and climbed to #11 in the UK. 

Since then, the group has had a musical made from their music, Viva Forever, written by Absolutely Fabulous creator and star Jennifer Saunders. In 2012, they reunited again for a triumphant stint at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. In 2019, Brown, Halliwell, Chisholm, and Bunton toured yet again under the Spice Girls name. 

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(Click below to see the rest of the post)

 

The Spice Girls appeared on Top Of The Pops to perform their Christmas #1 single (a big thing in the country)...

 

 The group appeared on the Brit Awards in 2000 as well...

In 2008, Geri Halliwell even sang on this hit on their Return Of The Spice Girls reunion tour...

 

 The Girls brought "Goodbye" out for their 2019 tour...

and lastly on the Royal Variety Show, with pregnant Mel B and Victoria in the mix...

Up tomorrow: A Canadian jerks the tears of millions of dog lovers everywhere.