A Question of Sporty Trivia Quiz

Answer: Liverpool

Melanie is from Whiston near Liverpool and is a massive Liverpool supporter. In the early days of the Spice Girls, she would often wear Liverpool shirts on TV and in photoshoots. She also founded a label called Red Girl (red being Liverpool's kit colour) and covered 'You'll Never Walk Alone', from 'Cabaret', which has been adopted as Liverpool's theme song for many years.

She once said that one of her most embarrassing encounters was when she was at Anfield, Liverpool's ground, and 'Wannabe' came on over the tannoy!

Answer: True

Melanie cites her mother as one of her inspirations to become a pop star. She used to go to gigs and stand at the front miming along. One of the bands Joan sang with were a Tina Turner tribute act called River Deep; Melanie's stepdad Dennis played bass. Like the other girls' mothers, Joan appeared in the 'Mama' video.

After Melanie left school, she went to a performing arts college in London and trained in singing, acting and dancing; she specialised in ballet and tap. During her time at college, she was so poor that she used to steal food from the canteen.

Answer: A backflip

Melanie performs a backflip in the 'Wannabe' video, and also did it onstage from time to time with the Spice Girls (such as their first appearance on 'Top of the Pops'). She got her nickname partly because of this and partly because her signature outfit was sportswear. During her time in the Spice Girls, she took working out to extreme levels; she would panic if there were no gyms on tour, and developed an eating disorder.

Answer: Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra died in 1998, so there was little chance of the Spice Girls getting to sing with him. They teamed up with Echo and the Bunnymen, Tommy Scott of Space and Simon Fowler of Ocean Colour Scene to record the 1998 England World Cup song, 'How Does It Feel to Be on Top of the World?' Melanie is a fan of fellow Scousers Space and asked Scott if she could wear one of their shirts on 'TFI Friday'; according to Scott, she was 'trying to get more credible', and he couldn't understand why anyone would think Space were credible! Outside the Spice Girls, Melanie duetted with Bryan Adams on 'When You're Gone' in 1998.

Answer: The two singers recorded their parts in different countries, without meeting.

'When You're Gone' was originally intended for Sheryl Crow, but she turned it down, as did Janet Jackson, and Bryan Adams suggested Melanie sing it with him when she met him in a hotel in Los Angeles. He recorded his vocal part in his native Canada and had the recording sent to Melanie in London, where she recorded her part, and then had it brought back to Canada for mixing.

Although they did not meet during the recording, Adams did phone Melanie beforehand and explain the details of the song, and the two performed it together on various TV shows. Both have performed it at solo gigs, with Adams inviting a female audience member onstage and Melanie's guitarist singing Adams' part.

The vocal lines are a minor third apart.

Answer: Emit Remmus

'Emit Remmus', which features the line 'what could be wetter than/an English girl American man'. It was inspired by Kiedis' relationship with Melanie. She said in an interview with the 'Express' in 2010, "The most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me is write a song. Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote 'Emit Remmus' - which is 'summertime' backwards - after we met." Melanie has frequented the same tattooist as members of the band.

Answer: "The Spice Girls, for me, is a hobby. My solo stuff is my proper job. This is the real me."

Melanie was very candid in the interview, admitting that she found Melanie Brown hard to get on with at times and that Victoria and David Beckham's wedding was OTT (though she also said that she had never seen two people so in love with each other). She was also quite scathing about Geri, who she called 'cotton wool' and did not take seriously as a singer.

However, what really put the cat among the pigeons was when Melanie described the Spice Girls as a hobby and her solo music as 'the real me'. The rest of the group did not take it well, and Melanie made a similar gaffe a few years later in 2002 when she said that she no longer intended to work with the Spice Girls.

The group tried to insist she'd been taken out of context and didn't mean it, but the 'Sun' had recorded the interview and offered to play it down a phone line to readers.

Answer: Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes

'Never Be the Same Again' was the third single to be released from 'Northern Star', one of the most successful singles from the album, and was a huge departure from the rest of the album. While 'Northern Star' was an indie-rock album, 'Never Be the Same Again' was an R'n'B track, featuring a rap from Left Eye, while 'I Turn to You' was a trance track. Melanie C's departure from the Spice Girls' usual style and foray into making the kind of music she liked met with criticism from some rock critics - the 'NME' was particularly scathing - while other reviewers were more positive. She performed at V99 and was bottled throughout her set. She was also criticised for covering the Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy in the UK' and singing 'I am an Antichrist/I am Sporty Spice'.

Left Eye had left TLC after their third album 'FanMail' came out, due to conflicts with the other members of the group. As well as 'Never Be the Same Again', she also duetted with Donell Jones on 'U Know What's Up' and guested on Li'l Kim's 'Not Tonight', and recorded a solo album, 'Supernova'. She was killed in a car crash in Honduras in 2002, at the age of 30.

Answer: Reason

'Reason' reached Number Five on the UK Album Chart, but the singles did not do as well; 'Here It Comes Again' peaked at Number Seven, 'On the Horizon' at Number 14 and the double A-side of 'Yeh Yeh Yeh/Melt' at Number 27, one of the poorest chart positions achieved by a Spice Girl.

The album also received mixed reviews, and Melanie herself admitted later that it could have been better. David Sinclair speculated in his Spice Girls biography 'Wannabe: How the Spice Girls Reinvented Pop Fame' that the novelty of Spice Girls solo albums had worn off by then; all five Spice Girls had released solo albums, with Geri and Melanie C both on their second. Nancy Phillips, the Spice Girls' former manager and later Melanie's manager, later said that 'On the Horizon' should never have been chosen as the second single, and that 'Reason' was closer to 'what Melanie is really about'.

Answer: They were all from musicals.

Like Melanie B, Melanie C performed in musicals and made use of her stage training; she played Mrs Johnstone in Willy Russell's 'Blood Brothers' and Mary Magdalene in 'Jesus Christ Superstar', and was also a judge on 'Superstar', a talent show searching for an actor to play Jesus.

The role inspired her to record an album of showtunes called 'Stages'. It included 'Tell Me It's Not True' from 'Blood Brothers' and 'I Don't Know How to Love Him' from 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. Emma Bunton also duetted with her on 'I Know Him So Well' from 'Chess'.