There's no gentle way of saying this, so let's cut to the chase. This record is, quite simply, useless.
The most successful girl group of all time have teamed up with the best producer of modern R&B records, and two of the most significant figures in the history of post-1970s pop music. And what Mels B and C, Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have done is to create a record devoid of personality, bereft of interest, an empty vessel that resolutely refuses to make any noise whatsoever, no matter how hard you strike the thing with the nearest blunt instrument.
That this is still the work of the real Spice Girls seems inconceivable, so much so that you begin closely scrutinising the cover to see if you can confirm that they've been replaced by robots. In a desperate attempt to be seen as "adult", "mature", "grown-up", and all those other things pop music should never try to be, 'Forever' succeeds only in being dull. There isn't even the thrill of discovering something inept or just plain old laughable tosh - everything is pristine and precise, so heavily polished it's become transparent.
'If You Wanna Have Some Fun' is as close as anything here gets to irony, and thus to interest - though the sleeve, showing the four remaining Spices clinging desperately to one another beneath that epitaph-like title, lets you know that there's no way they're ever going to follow this record up.
Individually, none of these women has made a record that defies the listener quite as totally as this: even Emma's pointless and derivative remake of Edie Brickell's 'What I Am' had a higher level of listenability and general merit than anything on show here.
The two tracks from the current chart-topping double-A-side, 'Holler' and 'Let Love Lead The Way', are the best songs on 'Forever' by a country mile, but still don't deserve to be singles. And this from a band who, by any reasonable set of standards, created two of the finest pop moments of the past 20 years ('Stop' and 'Say You'll Be There'). You're forced to conclude that Geri must've taken the tunes with her when she left. As well as the colour, attitude, zest and fun.
The remaining Spices are all too aware of this. 'Tell Me Why' is clearly about their former band mate. "What made you think/That without me/Your life would be so much better?/But now you see/That without me/Your hopes and dreams/Will never be as good as what you had with me", they argue, but the thick-soled boot is very clearly on Halliwell's foot. The chorus is all "Why didn't you stay?", "We could've stayed together but you wanted it this way", but even by the time they were writing this garbage they must surely have realised the game was up.
That 'Forever' will sell is not in doubt: but almost no-one will ever want to listen to it more than once. So, roll on the breakup and the next round of solo albums. At least they'll be entertaining.
