Spice Girls - Forever (25th Anniversary) [Red & Black Marble]

Spice Girls celebrate Forever with this limited 25th anniversary edition on red and black marble vinyl, a striking new look for the group's most grown-up record.

Released in 2000, their third and final studio album found the Spice Girls as a four-piece after Geri Halliwell's departure, and they used the moment to reinvent themselves completely. Instead of the bright pop that made them global stars, they teamed up with American R&B heavyweights including Rodney Jerkins and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The result was sleeker and moodier, a turn-of-the-millennium sound that has aged better than many remember.

Holler opens with a slinky, stuttering beat and four voices trading lines with real attitude, and as a double A-side with Let Love Lead the Way, it gave the group yet another UK number one. That second song is a lush, slow-burning ballad that shows just how strong their harmonies had become. Tell Me Why leans hard into crisp, syncopated R&B, while Goodbye, their tender farewell to an absent bandmate, closes the album on a bittersweet high.

For fans who grew up with them, it is a reminder that the story did not end in the nineties. Twenty-five years on, it still sounds bold and an awful lot of fun.