3am: GERI NO DATES; She postpones poor-selling tour.
Byline: WITH JESSICA CALLAN, EVA SIMPSON AND CAROLINE HEDLEYGERI Halliwell's desperate attempts at reinventing herself to revive her ailing pop career have not gone to plan.
Confusing the few fans she has left, 32-year-old Geri ditched the camp vamp Christina Aguilera look and decided to rebrand herself as a serious singer-songwriter, like Dido.
But nothing seems to work.
Earlier in the week she ditched her manager. And last night she put on hold a 13-date tour of England and Ireland, after failing to sell out a single venue.
The gigs, planned for May, were to coincide with the release of her third solo album.
But her bosses at Innocent Records are said to be unhappy with it and have ordered her back in the studio to come up with new material.
"The plan was that Geri would release a single this month and put the album out in March," says our spy. "But they dropped off the release schedules.
"She's been working on her second solo comeback for more than three years now. It was scheduled for release last summer, there's no point her touring with just one single out."
It had all started so promisingly for Geri. She left The Spice Girls in 1998 and a year later released Schizophonic. In 2001 she put out a second album, Scream If You Wanna Go Faster.
Then it all went quiet.
She pulled out all the stops to relaunch her solo career last November.
To promote the camp disco single Ride It, she cantered through Soho on a horse before cavorting on stage at G.A.Y with barely-clad dancers. But it only sold 41,000 copies.
"She did a fantastic performance at G.A.Y in December dressed in a toga with half-naked dancers in an orgy-style setting," says our source.
"This has now all stopped. She has decreed that she wants to be taken seriously.
"But she's Geri Halliwell, not Dido! She should stick to what she does best, which is tongue-in-cheek, kitsch music and videos."
Geri has now parted company with manager Richard Thomp-son after six months and signed to Paul Conroy, who oversaw the launch of The Spice Girls. She has also turned to songwriters/ producers Korpi & Blackcell who have worked with Dannii Minogue. Ominously, Dannii parted company with Warners last May after her Neon Nights album failed to set the world on fire.
A spokeswoman for Geri said: "Currently in the midst of finishing her forthcoming album, Geri's new team have advised her to postpone her May UK tour.
"Innocent are excited about the new album and look forward to being able to promote it properly before Geri embarks on the tour."
We're not holding our breath.
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| Title Annotation: | Features |
|---|---|
| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Feb 12, 2005 |
| Words: | 452 |
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