The Spice Girls return, after missing #1 for the first time behind Run-D.M.C, with their first Geri-less single…

Viva Forever, by The Spice Girls (their 7^th of nine #1s)

2 weeks, from 26^th July – 9^th August 1998

I can still remember where I was when I heard Geri had left the group (some generations had JFK…) I was in a minibus, on my way home from a Scout camp, when news broke on the radio. But of course, ‘Viva Forever’ had been recorded months before, so Halliwell still features both in the song and in the video – as much as any of the girls ‘feature’ in the video as animated fairies – and in fact was credited with writing most of the lyrics.

There are some lovely strings ‘n’ harmonies in the intro, then a cool Spanish guitar to bring some drama. The verses have a sense of melancholy, and the lyrics – originally about a summer romance – have a real yearning to them. The bridge even has some Spanish, for that touch of class. The verses too have a timeless quality to them, even if the chord progressions are a little predictable.

Of course, by the time Geri had left, the lyrics had ceased to be about a summer fling and seemed to fit perfectly as her ‘goodbye’ to the band. And this is a very solid pop record. In fact, it’s almost adult-oriented soft rock. And I’d put it down as the group’s best ballad, miles ahead of ‘Mama’, and pretty far ahead of ‘2 Become 1’. The fact that they had gems like this up their sleeve, two years into their career, sets the Spice Girls apart from most other pop fodder of the time.

The only thing that slightly lets this record down is the vocals. And we know, of course, seven chart-toppers in, that people didn’t buy Spice Girls’ records for the quality of their voices. But it’s on songs like this, where they can’t rely on boisterous, girl-power energy, that you can hear how reedy a couple of them were. Luckily, Mel C is on hand to do most of the heavy lifting as the song reaches its climax.

I can’t remember ever seeing the full music video for ‘Viva Forever’ before, but it’s a trip. Set in the 1970s, two boys follow an animatronic bouncing chicken into a forest where they meet the Spiceys as slightly demented looking fairies. One of the boys disappears into a Rubik’s cube with the girls, leaving his friend lost and confused… It apparently took longer to film than the entirety of ‘Spiceworld – The Movie’, and adds a ‘loss of innocence’ interpretation to the song’s lyrics.

So, Geri had left, citing exhaustion and depression. The drama was that she didn’t tell the other girls to their faces, causing a rift for many years… It wasn’t the only crack to start showing, though. Before the Girls return for their penultimate number one, their solo careers will have started, with predictably chart-topping results.