Geri Halliwell was the first to leave the Spice Girls, when she exited the group in May 1998, citing exhaustion and creative differences. Her action aroused controversy as her former group was due to embark on a North American tour, which they eventually completed without her, and despite no longer being part of the group, she featured on two more Spice Girls releases that were scheduled prior to her departure, including the single 'Viva Forever'. After she left, the other girls co-wrote a few songs about her which appeared on their album 'Forever', including 'Goodbye', 'Tell Me Why' and 'Let Love Lead The Way', and in 1999, one year after leaving the group, she launched her solo career and released her debut album 'Schizophonic', along with the lead single 'Look At Me', and this was followed by three further UK number ones, with 'Mi Chico Latino', 'Lift Me Up' and 'Bag It Up'. The album itself reached number four in the UK chart, and was preceded by a 90-minute Channel 4 documentary titled 'Geri', which was a ratings success with 4.5 million viewers. In October 1999 she released the autobiography 'If Only', in which she described her life as a Spice Girl, and the book went on to top the best-seller lists, selling over a million copies in the UK alone.
In 2001, Halliwell released her second album, 'Scream If You Wanna Go Faster', which emulated the success of its predecessor by reaching number five in the UK, and her cover of the Weather Girls' 1983 hit, 'It's Raining Men', was used on the soundtrack of the film 'Bridget Jones's Diary', and became a major hit worldwide, peaking at number one in the UK, and hitting the top 10 in over 27 countries. In January 2002, she released her second autobiography, 'Just For The Record', detailing her rise to fame and her turbulent celebrity lifestyle, and later that year she joined Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh as a judge on the television series 'Popstars: The Rivals', which created Girls Aloud. In late 2004 she made a return to music with the single 'Ride It', which reached number four in the UK chart, but it was several months before another single was released, during which time she was apparently instructed to record some new tracks for an album by her record company, which was unhappy with what had already been taped. She planned her first solo tour of the UK and Ireland, but due to lack of ticket sales, compounded by the label's pressure on her to record additional songs, led to the cancellation of the tour, and it was some months later that a new single eventually appeared, with 'Desire' being released in 30 May 2005, reaching number 22 in the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance Charts. Released shortly afterwards, the source album, 'Passion', similarly received little attention from the public or critics and stalled at number 41 in the British charts, and she was dropped by EMI, although she publicly stated that she was not interested in recording another album at that time, and was content with writing children's books and motherhood.
On 12 April 2007 it was announced that Halliwell had signed a six-book deal with Macmillan Children's Books, for a series of children's novels, titled Ugenia Lavender, which followed the adventures of nine-year-old Ugenia, a character based on herself. Later that year, in June, the Spice Girls regrouped and announced plans for a reunion tour, from which they were said to have earned £10 million each, and they released their first compilation album, 'Greatest Hits'. Following an appearance in the film 'Crank: High Voltage' in 2009, and a few TV spots, she posted a message on her website in April 2010, saying she was back in the studio, and in July 2011 she confirmed she'd been working on her fourth album, and that by February 2012 it was in the process of being mastered. In October 2012 she made her first solo performance in seven years at the Breast Cancer Care, debuting a new track called 'Phenomenal Woman', and in October 2013 she premiered her first solo single in nearly eight years, performing 'Half Of Me' on Channel 9's NRL Footy Show grand final show in Australia. Despite announcing that her fourth album was complete in 2012, she continued to work on new material, and in November 2016 thirteen songs leaked onto the internet, which purported to be from her long-awaited fourth album 'Man On The Mountain'. Apart from the 2017 charity single 'Angels In Chains', to raise money for Childline, nothing much has been heard from Halliwell on the music front for some time, and so as it looks like that elusive fourth solo record is now not likely to make an appearance, here is the leaked album from 2016, along with the Australian only single 'Half Of Me', so that we can hear what she up to in those lost years.
Track listing
01 Love And Light
02 Humanity
03 Man On The Mountain
04 Beautiful Life
05 Deep Down
06 If You Love Someone
07 Miracles
08 Phenomenal Woman
09 Without Love
10 Sheriff
11 I’ve Got A Name
12 I Am Older Now
13 Get Involved
14 Half Of Me
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