Reason (Melanie C album)


Reason is the second album by English singer-songwriter, Melanie C. It was the follow up album to Northern Star. Released on 10 March 2003, it reached number five in the UK Albums Chart, selling 30,876 copies in its first week. Although not performing as well as Northern Star, Reason has a Gold certification in the United Kingdom, with 101,889 copies sold. The album has sold 500,000 copies worldwide. The album has been released with the Copy Control protection system in some regions. Most reviews for the album were mixed.

Background and recording

After the massive success of Northern Star, Melanie C was considered the only member of the Spice Girls to be able to establish a steady successful career as a solo artist. By the end of 2003 she was the only member of the Spice Girls to have a contract with Virgin Records, since all of the rest of the Spice Girls had either left or were dropped by their record label as solo artists.
Melanie C had spent most of 2000 and 2001 touring around the world, promoting Northern Star, planning to enter the studio at the end of 2001, to start recording her new album. During this time, things for her often proved to be difficult, as Melanie was diagnosed with depression in 1999. She later encountered that it was really difficult for her to handle all the publicity and the hard work during the Spice Girls days, a period that she would spend days eating too little and exercise to the limits. At the end of 1999, her depression worsened and spent days in bed, not being able to cope with day routine. After being diagnosed with depression she was prescripted antidepressants for 18 months, dealing with eating disorders and having to face a really hostile media reaction questioning different topics from her weight to her sexuality.
During the early stages of Reason's recording sessions in November 2001, Virgin Record executives were quite worried about the musical style of the second album, since her biggest hits from her solo album was an R&B single and a dance single, while Melanie C insisted that she wanted to keep making pop rock albums. According to The Sun a record company source stated that “both Mel and Virgin have agreed that she should keep to the rock vibe that helped her 1999 album, Northern Star, do so well. But that is where their agreement ends". Melanie C had already stated that she wanted to work with new producers, while keeping some of the producers that had worked on her debut album. The original release date for the album was October 2002 but it was delayed till March 2003, resulting in a number of articles in newspapers, questioning her relationship with her record company, reporting that she was under pressure to lose weight. On an official statement published on her site, Melanie C stated that her relationship with Virgin was "fantastic", the recording sessions were going well and that she was never forced to delay the release of her second album or to lose weight. During the recording seasons for the album 40 songs were recorded. On 12th of November 2002 the album title "Reason" was finally revealed on her official site.
On January 2003 Melanie C gave an official track-by-track review to the press, revealing the album's track list, which was quite different to the one that the real album finally had when it was released. Melanie stated that she was happy with having some of the Northern Star composers and producers on the new album as well as working with new ones, like David Arnold, Tore Johansson and Peter Vettese. Originally the track list included 11 tracks with the following order: Here It Comes Again, On The Horizon, Reason, Lose Myself In You, Let's Love, Home, Soul Boy, Do I, Water, Positively Somewhere and Wonderland. Melt and Yeh, Yeh, Yeh were last minute additions to the album's track list, while Wonderland was removed and released as a B-side of the On The Horizon DVD single. On 23 January 2003 a bunch of journalists were invited to have a listen to Melanie C's new album "Reason" and then interview her a little afterwards. Virgin executives stated that they hope "this will be the record that will crack the USA and rival the Avril Lavigne's of the world". It was also revealed that there were six versions of the album which all the relevant record company people had, in order to decide which one flows the best. "Here It Comes Again", which was actually one of the first songs of the album to be recorded served as the first single.
For the album and single covers Melanie C and her record label commissioned Sean Ellis as the official photographer.
While working on the album, Melanie C recorded "Independence Day" from the film soundtrack Bend It Like Beckham. She also wrote the song "Help Me Help You" for Holly Valance, included in her debut album Footprints.

Release and promotion

Reason was released 10 March 2003. Prior to album's release Melanie C did a lot of appearances on TV shows including and The Graham Norton Show, while she gave some interviews on magazines like Times Magazine, Attitude and Marie Claire. She also performed a four-song set at HMV London. The set list included her past number one singles "Never Be the Same Again" and "I Turn To You", as well as her new single "Here It Comes Again" and the album track "Positively Somewhere". Promotion also included an exclusive webcast on 24 February 2003 performing four songs, which were the same with the HMV setlist, except from "I Turn To You" which was replaced by "Goin' Down". During the webcast Melanie C did a 30 minutes interview, where she answered questions from fans from all over the world. She stated that she considered releasing "On The Horizon", " "Positively Somewhere", "Reason" and "Melt" as singles. She also stated that she had decided to leave "Wonderland" out of the album at the last minute because she thought it was a dark song, while the album was having a positive vibe. Melanie embarked her third tour named Reason Tour in order to promote the album. The tour started on 24 April 2003 and included 25 shows in Europe.
In September 2003, Melanie C took part on The Games, a British reality sports game show that ran on Channel 4, hoping to boost album sales, where unfortunately she was badly injured. Her injury changed the selection of the song which was selected to be released as a third single: "Yeh Yeh Yeh" was originally planned to be released as single but after her injury "Melt" was then chosen to be launched along with "Yeh Yeh Yeh" as a double A-side, because she could do a small number of performances and "Melt" as a ballad, requiring minimum movement, was thought to be easier to promote. Her injury prevented her from fully promoting her last single and the album further.

Chart performance

Reason debuted at number 5 in the UK Albums Chart on the issue dated 22 March 2003. Sales started to decline on the second week with the album falling to number 19, appearing to the chart just 3 more weeks before falling out completely from it. The release of the second single On the Horizon on June 2003 boosted the sales of the album just a bit, with the album reappearing on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks at number 81 and 99. The final single Melt/ Yeh, Yeh, Yeh was released with high hopes but didn't help album sales at all. Reason entered the chart for the last time on 17 January 2004, completing a 8 weeks appearance. Because of the poor sales, Virgin Records decided to drop Melanie C at the end of 2003. In an interview on The Guardian on 2007 Melanie C stated that she had "mixed feelings" for being dropped after the poor sales of Reason. She stated that she knew that Virgin Records "were starting to lose faith in me, so I was actually quite relieved to go".

Critical reception

The album received mixed reviews. AllMusic gave Reason 2.5 stars out of 5 with Stephen Thomas Erlewine stating that " are colourless and characterless, sounding as if their main goal is to get on pop radio" and that the album "is a real disappointment after the very good, very promising Northern Star". The Guardian gave Reason 2 out of 5 stars, with Alexis Petridis stating that the album "settles on a direction, sounds confident and efficient and wrings the last drops of originality out of Melanie C".
In 2007 during an interview on The Guardian Melanie C stated that she thought that the songs on Reason "could have been stronger".

Track listing

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Reason.

Personnel

  • Melanie C – vocals
  • Simon Clarke – baritone saxophone, alto flute
  • Marius De Vries – keyboards, programming
  • Luís Jardim – percussion
  • Chris Garcia – guitar, backing vocals, bass guitar, percussion
  • Rick Nowels – piano, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric piano, mellotron, synthesizer
  • Brandon Fields – trumpet saxophone
  • Mike Busby – guitar
  • Steve Sidelnyk – drums
  • Lewis Taylor – guitar, backing vocals
  • Peter John Vettese – piano
  • Rhett Lawrence – guitar, programming
  • Andy Maclure – drums
  • Jon Stewart – guitar
  • Paul Bushnell – bass guitar
  • James Sanger – programming
  • Olle Romo – guitar
  • Marcus Brown – keyboards, guitar, mandolin, percussion
  • Jake Davies – programming
  • Jamie Candiloro – keyboards, piano
  • David Munday – guitar
  • Jerry Hey – trumpet
  • Abe Laboriel Jr. – drums
  • Eric Erlandson – guitar
  • Rusty Anderson – electric guitar
  • Ian Thomas – drums
  • Alexis Smith – keyboards, programming
  • Peter Wilson – guitar
  • Phil Thornalley – keyboards, guitar
  • Wayne Rodrigues – drum programming
  • Kim Kahn – bass guitar
  • Monte Pittman – guitar
  • John Savannah – piano, synthesizer
  • Curt Bisquera – drums
  • Guy Chambers – keyboards
  • Richard Flack – percussion, programming
  • Bill Reichenbach Jr. – saxophone
  • Phil Spalding – bass guitar
  • Damian LeGassick – keyboards, programming, guitar
  • Pete Hofmann – additional drum programming
  • Phil Palmer – guitar
  • Claire Worrall – backing vocals

    B-sides

Charts

Certification