The Spice Girls wrote the bulk of their second album “in a mobile studio on set” for their 1997 movie, Spice World.
The film – which stars Melanie C, Emma Bunton, Geri Horner, Mel B and Victoria Beckham – features the girls undergoing a series of fictional events leading up to a major concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Despite being critically panned, the film was a major box office smash and, according to Melanie, it was while working on the project that the girls completed work on the follow-up to their debut LP, Spice.
“We wrote a lot of Spice World in a mobile studio on set, on the movie.,” she tells Essentials Radio on Apple Music.
“It was crazy. And a lot of that album was inspired by what we’d experienced, and we really had travelled the globe.
“And four or five girls, most of us from a working-class background, had never had the opportunity to see the places, stay in the places that we had as Spice Girls.
She adds: “We were in a bubble. We spent probably two years, our feet didn’t touch the ground.
“We were away from home, our families, our friends, but we were on this mad adventure, this crazy ride so I wouldn’t change any of it.”
Spiceworld, the album, was released a month before the film, in November, 1997, and features the hits Spice Up Your Life, Too Much, Stop, and Viva Forever.
It was to be the Spice Girls’ final album in the group’s original line-up, with Geri departing in 1998.
Reflecting on the group becoming a four-piece, Melanie recalls: “I feel Geri’s departure was the beginning of the end.
“Obviously the Spice Girls will live on forever, but it was the end of that phase.
“We were in this pressure cooker and she needed to get away. She needed some space and as hard as it was, it was what she had to do. And even though at the time it was hard for us, we had to respect that.
“We were angry with her and we were disappointed and we felt let down, but time heals and we all got older and we all moved on and yeah, it’s just water under the bridge now.
“We’ve had so many ups and downs in our friendships, in our careers, in our lives as Spice Girls,” adds the star. “And just that acceptance that we are all absolute pains in the backside, but we love each other dearly.”
Since coming off tour with bandmates Emma Bunton, Geri Horner and Mel B in 2019, Melanie released her eighth, self-titled album in October – featuring new single Into You – earning the star her highest-charting LP in the UK since 2003’s Reason.
In our review of Melanie C, Retro Pop called the album “without a doubt her most confident, polished, and exciting release to date”.
