Life in Mono was the third album from former Spice Girl and now-grownup Baby Spice, Emma Bunton. Following the album Free Me, on which she even attempted to drop the Spice Girl connotations by simply calling herself Emma, she garnered three Top Ten singles and her second Top Ten album. But what a difference two years can make in the fickle pop industry. It was still looking good when she recorded the annual single for the charity Children in Need in 2006; she took the Petula Clark song "Downtown" to number three, but sung it with a blandness and safety where the original had spark and edginess. Two weeks later, the album was released by the only bandmember left with a recording contract, and disastrously so: it charted at number 65, not the sort of position that a Spice Girl was used to. It's not difficult to hear why it did so badly, for if ever there was a safe album, light and fluffy with almost no substance, this was it. The title track, a cover of the song by trip-hop band Mono, was a mid-tempo easy listening ballad reminiscent of something that might have appeared on a '60s LP by Burt Bacharach or Raymond LeFevre as was "I'm Not Crying Over Yesterdays" and many of the other tracks, including Bunton's naughty take of "Undressing You." The opening track, "All I Need to Know," was released as the first single, apart from the charity outing, and was a sweet ballad, again with little substance and no memorable hook. ~ Sharon Mawer, All Music Guide
Life In Mono is the third studio album by English pop singer Emma Bunton. The album was originally set for a November release in the UK, however it was later pushed back to the 4 December 2006. Life In Mono, much like her previous album, Free Me, experimented with elements of 1960s pop music. For this particular album the musical arrangement was more directed towards the '60sFrenchpop music, with some elements of British '60s pop and Motown. The first single taken from the album was a cover of Petula Clark's 1964 hit single "Downtown", released on 13 November. "Downtown" is the 2006 BBCChildren in Need official charity single. "All I Need to Know" was released as second single.
Bunton had been working on her third release since 2005. The album's title track is a cover version of the hit "Life in Mono" by 1990s trip hop band Mono, best known through its usage in the 1998 film Great Expectations. The track "Take Me to Another Town" contains a sample from Herb Alpert's 1965 "Green Peppers".
Due to Emma’s pregnancy all forms of promotion were canceled after a few months. Rumors of a third single surfaced through sites after Emma stated she was thinking of releasing a third single, however this never came. The songs I Wasn’t Looking (When I Found Love), Perfect Strangers and Take Me To Another Town were rumored.
The album was Emma's first not to reach the UK top 10. It flopped on the UK Albums Chart at #65 on 10 December 2006 falling to #75 in its second week and dropped out of the chart the following week. However, it sold around 60,000 copies, enough for a silver certification.
