SPICY SINGLES

THE Spice Girls celebrate the 25th anniversary of the song that launched Girl Power with a spruced-up reissue of their first single Wannabe. The catchy empowerment anthem attracted lukewarm reviews in July 1996, but went on to top the charts in 37 countries and become the seventh best-selling debut of all time.

Repacked today as a fourtrack digital EP — with vinyl and cassette versions in two weeks — the track is featured in its initial guise, as a beats-driven dance mix by Junior Vasquez and as a previously unheard demo that lacks the original’s zest. Mellow R&B ballad Feed Your Love, another unreleased track, completes the package.

TAYLOR SWIFT continues to show her more adventurous side with another brilliant single Renegade, this time made with The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon as part of indie-pop collective Big Red Machine. The song, from the band’s forthcoming LP, is an upbeat, electronic folk number that sees Swift and Vernon in perfect harmony.

SAM FENDER renews his bid to become the North Shields Springsteen on new single Seventeen Going Under, a chest-thumping rocker with a 1980s drum thwack, while Brighton soul singer Celeste prepares for the imminent return of nightclubs by teaming up with Detroit house pioneer MK (Marc Kinchen) for a dance mixof her 2020 single Stop This Flame.

And SUFJAN STEVENS joins another American singersongwriter, Angelo De Augustine, for the first two tracks from a forthcoming album based loosely on popular movies.

Having explored electronic music on last year’s The Ascension, Stevens returns to his acoustic roots on Reach Out and Olympus, folky pop numbers worthy of Simon & Garfunkel. The album, A Beginner’s Mind, is set for September.