"Viva Forever" is a song by English girl group the Spice Girls from their second studio album, Spiceworld (1997). The song was co-written by the group with Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard, while production was handled by the latter two. It is a pop ballad with Spanish-style elements. The song's theme is about a summer romance during a holiday vacation, as the lyrics discuss recent experiences and memories. It was released as the album's fourth and final single on 10 July 1998 by Virgin Records.
The single's commercial release was delayed several times and was poorly promoted, being affected by Geri Halliwell's departure and the subsequent continuation of the Spiceworld Tour by the remaining members. The song was well received by most music critics, with some considering it their best work artistically in 1998. It was a commercial success, debuting atop the UK Singles Chart, becoming the group's seventh number-one single in the United Kingdom and staying at the position for two weeks. It has since been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The song was also successful on the music charts in the rest of Europe, as well as Canada and Oceania.
An accompanying music video, directed by Steve Box, features stop motion animation of the group as fairies, and it took five months to be completed. The video was commissioned months before Halliwell's departure and as such, she is featured in it and on the accompanying artwork.
Background In May 1997, the Spice Girls went on a promotional visit to the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France, where they announced their then-upcoming movie Spice World (1997). The group began shooting scenes for the movie in June. Meanwhile, Virgin Records started the first marketing meetings for the promotional campaign for their second album Spiceworld, which was set to be released in November 1997. No song had been written for the album at this point, so the Spice Girls had to do all the songwriting and recording at the same time as they were shooting the movie. Between takes and at the end of each filming day, the group usually went straight into a mobile recording studio set up in a Winnebago, which followed them between film sets. Their schedule was physically arduous with logistical difficulties, as Melanie Brown commented in her autobiography: "doing the two full-time jobs at the same time took its toll and within a couple on weeks, exhaustion set in".
For the album, the Spice Girls worked with the same songwriting teams and producers from their debut studio album, Spice (1996). But during the recording of the Spiceworld tracks, the group was so busy with the filming schedule that the quality of their musical contributions became more erratic and piecemeal. Andy Watkins, of the production duo Absolute, co-writers of "Who Do You Think You Are" (from the band's previous album) remembered: "We'd sit there literally all day long and quite often we wouldn't even get them at all." Eliot Kennedy, who co-wrote "Say You'll Be There" with the group, worked on a couple of backing tracks for Spiceworld, but decided not to get involved in the album after hearing from the other teams about the complications of the recording schedule.
Writing and inspiration "Viva Forever" was one of the last songs the group wrote for Spiceworld. It was written at the end of the summer of 1997, after the filming for the Spice World movie had finished. Originally entitled "Obrigado", which means "thank you" in Portuguese, it was later renamed. The song was written by the Spice Girls with the songwriting team Richard "Biff" Stannard and Matt Rowe. They later confirmed that the lyrics were mainly penned by Geri Halliwell. The inspiration for the song's theme came from the idea of a summer romance during a holiday vacation on the Costa Brava or Costa del Sol in the Spanish Mediterranean, and the people the group met during those holidays. Emma Bunton commented about the songwriting process:
When we sat down to write it, we were talking about holiday romances, so that's what came out in the studio. I don't think I've ever had a real holiday romance, but I've met people I'll never forget. You meet so many different people and have nice or weird or romantic experiences with them, and you never forget them, do you?
Composition and lyrics
Musically, "Viva Forever" is a pop ballad with R&B influences, and Spanish-style elements. It is written in the key of E minor, with a time signature set in common time, and moves at a slow tempo of 84 beats per minute. The song starts with an instrumental introduction that includes keyboards, an acoustic guitar played by John Themis, and a string section arranged by English composer Anne Dudley. The song is constructed in a verse-chorus form, with an instrumental interlude before the bridge and the third chorus. It uses the sequence of Em–Bm–C–G as a chord progression during the verses and the chorus. The song employs Spanish production, including the sounds of castanets and guitars, a flamenco rhythm, and Spanish lyrics–"hasta mañana", translated as "until tomorrow", and "viva" itself, meaning "long live" (i.e.: Viva forever means "live forever", also written in the chorus's lyrics), as the lyrics were mostly written by Geri Halliwell who has maternal Spanish blood and speaks broken Spanish. Tom Ewing from the e-zine Freaky Trigger described it as "wistful music", while Alexis Petridis of The Guardian said that the song has a "note of melancholy" around it.
The lyrics of the song are about past experiences or memories. Talking about them, Bunton explained that in the song's concept, every experience is "like a little dream". She mentioned that the Spice Girls purposely left it "a bit open ended", as in the outcome is not clear if the narrator went back "to reality" or "back to normal"; and added that "it really makes you think–and we try to provoke thought with all our songs". Ewing believed the song encapsulates a very specific moment that he described as "memories of summer love fading at the edges", although he said lyrically, it "does nothing unexpected, and it never makes a move when there's a cheesier one available". El Hunt of NME also remarked on the lyrical content, commenting that it seemed "cribbed from motivational fridge magnets".
Release and promotion In February 1998, the Spice Girls embarked on the Spiceworld Tour covering Europe and North America, in support of their second studio album. On 22 April 1998, Smash Hits magazine reported the release of the album's fourth single for 25 May, a double A-side consisting of "Viva Forever" with "Never Give Up on the Good Times", a disco influenced track from Spiceworld that was written by the group with Stannard and Rowe. The release date was later postponed.
On 26 May, the group traveled back to the United Kingdom after their tour performance in Helsinki, Finland. The next day, their lawyer, Andrew Thompson, told the rest of the members that Halliwell decided to leave the group. That day, the group were scheduled to appear on The National Lottery Live, where they performed "Viva Forever" and "Spice Up Your Life" without Halliwell, the excuse being that she was ill. Speculation in the press grew, with reports of a midweek row on the plane back from Helsinki, and rumours of a power struggle with Brown as the reason for Halliwell's departure. The Spice Girls then flew to Oslo, Norway, to complete the last two shows of the European segment of the tour performance as a quartet. On 31 May 1998, Halliwell officially announced her departure from the Spice Girls through her solicitor, claiming that she was suffering from exhaustion, and because of differences between the group. She would later admit of having problems with an eating disorder and depression. The remaining group members announced that they would continue through the summer of 1998 with the North American part of the tour as originally planned.
On 15 June, the group traveled to the US to continue with the Spiceworld Tour in West Palm Beach. During the following weeks, the release date of "Viva Forever"–only as a standalone single–was pushed to three different dates in July 1998. Music Week reported that the single was to be released on 4 July, while Smash Hits announced it for 13 July. In late June 1998, the song started to receive airplay across the UK, appearing on the playlists of 46 ILR stations and Capital FM's the Pepsi Chart. It entered the UK Airplay Chart Top 50 on 11 July, and two weeks later, the song reached the top five despite the lukewarm support from Radio One, initially appearing on the B-list, before being promoted to the A-list.
After several delays, "Viva Forever" was commercially released in the UK on 20 July 1998, in three single versions. The first one, an enhanced CD, included the radio edit of the song, an instrumental take, and a remix version by American singer-songwriter and producer Tony Rich. In addition, the CD contained a multimedia programme, which features animated figures of the Spice Girls, scrolling synchronised lyrics, photographs and cartoons of each group member, an animated magic wand cursor that triggers an audio sample, and the music video. This was the first time that interactive multimedia components were available on a Spice Girls CD. The second version, released on a standard CD single, included the radio edit, live versions of "Who Do You Think You Are" and "Say You'll Be There" recorded at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, and a double-side poster. The same track listing was used for the third version of the single, released in cassette format.
Critical reception "Viva Forever" was met with generally positive reviews from music critics. Amanda Murray of Sputnikmusic described the song as "a genuinely great song" adding that it is "sincerely moving" and that "never would I have imagined the Spice Girls could pull off a song like this". Yahoo! Music complimented the song, saying "a tear-jerking flamenco guitar and lush strings weave into this break-your-heart, 'I Will Always Love You' ballad with a touch of Madonna about it [...] inspired". Ilana Kaplan of Billboard magazine, in a retrospective review of the Spiceworld album also gave the song a positive review, saying "Viva Forever was like the Spice Girls trying their hand at Sade with a fusion of Latin percussion and the vision of a cheesy romance novel. But it worked, and the Spice Girls made a five-minute epic song about living in the moment, but also moving on". "Can't Stop the Pop" also lauded the song, saying "Viva Forever is a brilliant song and very deserving of the success it enjoyed. Lying amidst the caricatured frivolously fun Spiceworld, this track emits a level of musicianship that the Spice Girls had rarely shown to such extent before. In a more mixed review, Gina Arnold of Salon.com felt that the ballads on Spiceworld are bland "but still appealing". Rolling Stone magazine's David Wild cited the song as an example of the album's production of a "rehash of hip-hop and pop clichés", with him adding it is "as convincing as the Spices' Spanish accents". Music Week described the song as a "haunting, flamenco-style ballad", and called it the "ideal summer hit". Writing for the Orange County Register, Cary Darling named the song one of Spiceworlds standout tracks for its "appealing, 'Fernando'-era ABBA internationalism"., crediting The staff of the Daily Record considered it the best track in the album, while Smash Hits critic Alex Needham lauded it as "the best thing they've ever done".