Geri Halliwell single flops in Australia with 393 copies sold

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/05/geri-halliwell-half-of-me-flop-australia

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She may have been a judge on Australia's Got Talent, but when it comes to her own brand of pop, Geri Halliwell has received a resounding rejection. Her new single Half of Me sold just 393 copies in its first week of release, ending up at 281 in Australia's ARIA charts.

"It got what it deserved," Damien Nicholas of the website Auspop told the Australian. "I love Geri, but this is the kind of single she'd have turned her nose up at as a B-side 10 years ago. It lacks spice."

The song, whose opening line is "Just like an apple cut down the middle / I only have one matching half", was Geri's first single since Desire in 2005. It's a fall from grace for a singer who had four UK solo No 1 records and two top five hits in Australia, as well as nine UK No 1s with the Spice Girls, six of which reached the Australian top five. Since the band's appearance at the Olympic closing ceremony in 2012 – which looks likely to have been their swansong – Halliwell has been short of musical success: the Spice Girls musical Viva Forever flopped during its West End run; footage of a tame Halliwell performance of Half of Me on Australian TV went viral for all the wrong reasons last month.

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