Passion (Geri Halliwell album)

Passion is the third studio album by English singer Geri Halliwell. It was released on 6 June 2005 by Innocent Records.

Two singles were released from the album: "Ride It", which peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart and number three on the Spanish and Scottish charts; and "Desire", which charted at number 22 in the UK.

The album received mixed reviews from critics and was a commercial disappointment, peaking at number 41 with 5,432 copies sold and charting for only one week on the UK Albums Chart. After one year of release, sales had reached 10,000 in the UK.

Background
Halliwell wrote many songs between 2001 and 2004 with a number of producers. Songs recorded during this period that did not appear on the final album include "Set Me Off", "Turn It On", "Putting on the Bling", "Disco Sister", and a cover version of "100% Pure Love". Halliwell also wanted to record the track "Some Girls" (written by Richard X and Hannah Robinson) for the album, but the track was instead given to Rachel Stevens.

At the end of 2004, EMI and Halliwell came to a mutual agreement and changed the focus of the album and the title to Passion, replacing some of the dance songs with ballads, jazz, and electropop songs, including the newly recorded songs "Passion", "Desire", "Surrender Your Groove", "So I Give Up on Love", and the B-side "True Love Never Dies".

Halliwell described the album as "a journey through a range of extreme emotions from passion and love through to fear and hope". According to her, Passion can be seen to chart her development as both a vocalist and songwriter. For the singer it had been a matter of "finding out who I am not as much as I what I am. I think this album catches me at a real transitional point as a songwriter".

Promotion
A documentary promoting Passion, titled There's Something About Geri, was premiered by Channel 5 on 15 May 2005. It covered her life and career and following her from Moscow to Milan and Britain as she prepares for a relaunch of her singing career. The documentary attracted an audience of 1.1 million viewers, garnering above-average Sunday ratings for the network. Despite rating success, it was criticised by the media for showing a "self-obsessed, painfully vain little girl in need of constant mollycoddling". She regretted doing the documentary film, commenting, "I shouldn't have done it! Even thinking about it makes me cringe!"

A tour had been planned in order to promote the album, but was cancelled.

Singles
"Ride It" was released on 22 November 2004 by Innocent Records as the first single from the album. "Ride It" was commercially successful, peaking at number four in the UK, number three in Spain and Scotland.

"Desire" was released on 30 May 2005 as the album's second and final single. It peaked at number 22 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the lowest-peaking single of Halliwell's solo career to date. To promote the single, Halliwell performed the song on Top of the Pops, Top Gear, CD:UK, The Footy Show, Ministry of Mayhem, Popworld and GMTV.

Critical reception
Passion received generally mixed reviews from music critics. John Lucas from Allmusic wrote that the album was an improvement over her previous record, Scream If You Wanna Go Faster. Talia Kraines from BBC Music praised Halliwell for not trying to make a serious "moody and mysterious" record. A review from entertainment.ie described the album as a "lightweight, summery pop record" with "slick" production. Generally, the uptempo, dance-pop tracks and ballads were praised while more criticism was given to the jazzier songs such as the title track. In particular, critics were complimentary towards the track "Love Never Loved Me", with Kraines calling it a "standout" and Lucas describing it as "possibly the best thing she has ever done outside of the Spice Girls". Both Lucas and Kraines were critical of the title track and "So I Give Up on Love", with Lucas writing: "Halliwell just does not have the range for this kind of material".

In contrast, Betty Clark from The Guardian described the title track as a "comfortable fit" but was critical towards "Love Never Loved Me", negatively comparing it to songs by Kylie Minogue and describing it as "lifeless, generic disco". Halliwell's vocals were also generally noted as an improvement on the album. Kraines singled out the ballad "Let Me Love You More" as an example of this. Clark described it as a "good pop song for grown-ups" and Lucas said that the song had a "pretty arrangement" that "overcomes her vocal shortcomings". Kraines wrote that it was "stunning" and the best track on the album, noting that you can "really hear how much Geri's voice has improved in the last 4 years" on the track. In a negative review, Tom Townsend from Yahoo! Music wrote that her vocals sounded worse on the record than on previous releases.

Personnel

 * Geri Halliwell – vocals
 * Anders Hedlund – drums
 * Peter-John Vettese – guitar, backing vocals, drums
 * Phil Spalding – bass guitar
 * Magnus Lind – accordion
 * Putter Smith - double bass
 * Andy Duncan – drum programming
 * Mitch Dalton – acoustic guitar
 * Joe Holweger – electric guitar, bass guitar
 * Dave Bishop – baritone saxophone
 * John Themis – guitar
 * Matthew Vaughan – keyboards, programming
 * Damon Wilson – bass guitar
 * Tim Van Der Kuil – guitar
 * Guy Chambers – acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, bass guitar
 * Frank Ricotti – percussion
 * Sam Dixon – bass guitar
 * Phil Palmer – acoustic guitar
 * Richard Robson – programming
 * Phil Todd – alto saxophone, flute
 * Dave Arch – piano
 * Chris Davis – tenor saxophone, flute
 * Emma Holmgren – backing vocals
 * Andy Caine – backing vocals
 * Hannah Robinson – backing vocals
 * Mitch Stevens – backing vocals
 * Tracy Ackerman – backing vocals
 * Claire Worrall – backing vocals
 * Gary Nuttall – backing vocals