Category: Artists

A couple weeks ago, I began writing about the bands I’ve previously had intense infatuations with. Here’s the promised part two of that article.

The Format/fun.

Height of infatuation: 2011-2012 (ages 28-29)

Then: I’ve combined these two bands because my infatuation was mainly for two albums that shared certain people and elements. The Format’s final album, Dog Problems, and fun.’s first, Aim + Ignite, both combined the talents of singer Nate Ruess, producer Steven Shane MacDonald, and arranger Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. And both albums amalgamated a wide range of pop influences usually too square for the 2000s: the melodicism of Harry Nilsson, the bombast of Queen, the baroque arrangements of ELO.

These bands also marked a reentry into music fandom for me. The years between the end of college and this period found me stagnating a bit, mostly listening to favorites or new-to-mes like XTC. But 2010 also marked the start of a streaming music service called Rdio that made me care about music again. It came out a bit before Spotify in the US, and it’s social features were still the best I’ve seen in this type of service. I managed to make a bunch of internet friends who shared playlists and chatted about music. I heard fun.’s song “Light a Roman Candle With Me” on one of these playlists and suddenly felt like new music had something to offer me again.

Special soulmate: I’m a borderline Millennial, and Nate Ruess is very close to my age. He’s probably the first Millennial songwriter I’ve loved and the first who has a sensibility and set of experiences that felt more like real life than a fantasy. Nate is almost uncool in the way he sings about things like loving his parents (“Snails” and “The Gambler”) and a kind of earnest need for self discovery (“But between MTV and Mr. O’Reilly/I’ve come to find, that I cant be defined”). Unlike many pop stars, he seems less interested in rebellion or provocation than in being a good person and doing the right thing.

Now: fun.’s Some Nights album was a big change in direction. It was produced by Jeff Bhasker, who has produced for people like Beyonce and Kanye West. As such, it had a much trendier sound, full of autotune and hip-hop influences. Some Nights was still a pretty good album and continued many of Nate Ruess’s favorite lyrical themes, but it definitely marked the end of the old pop sound. It hasn’t helped that fun. have not released anything since. Still, I consider Aim + Ignite and Dog Problems to be two off my all-time favorite albums, and I continue to listen to them regularly. I also haven’t stopped dreaming of a reunion of either band with their production/arranging dream team.

Oasis

Height of infatuation: 2013-2016 (ages 30-33)

Then: Oasis is a strange one, because my infatuation with them developed after nearly two decades of passing acquaintanceship. I bought (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? back in 1995 during the height of Oasis’s U.S. popularity. I saw them as being a bit like the Beatles — a melodic British rock band out the conquer the states. My middle school interest didn’t last long, but I have a crystal clear memory of putting on Morning Glory near the end of high school and being blindsided by the mix of familiarity and freshness upon hearing it again — my first brush with nostalgia. It was such a strong sensation that I immediately bought Definitely Maybe and rekindled a casual interest in the band.

Fastforward to 2013. My husband rented us a copy of a documentary called Live Forever. It’s not about Oasis per se, but about the Britpop phenomenon more generally. It featured extensive interviews with the major players, and it was love at first sight for me and Noel (or at least me). I hadn’t realized that he was so funny and insightful. I started listening to Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory again and expanding into the rest of the Oasis catalog. The next thing I knew, I was buying old CD singles so I could have all their b-sides and reading cheesy-looking (but actually good) books about the Gallaghers’ childhoods.

Special soulmate: Noel Gallagher is one of the best ever melodic songwriters, and his compositions radiate a kind of pure emotion that makes me feel understood in a non-verbal way. Noel is also a compelling figure to me because of the contrast between his rude, curmudgeonly exterior and the sensitive, wistful nature of his music (and occasionally his comments when he stops being snarky). Oasis as a band is cut from the same pattern. They’re known for being big, dumb, and loud, but actually I think most people who love them do so because of the way Noel lets that soft underbelly peek out.

Now: I’d say my Oasis infatuation ended shortly after I saw Noel Gallagher live in July 2016. I kind of knew it would happen. The infatuation had been too strong for too long to really hold for much longer, and the live show provided a capstone to the whole experience. I still love the band and listen to them a lot more moderately. There’s obviously still a spark there, since the release of Noel’s new single has got me excited for his new album and U.S. tour.

It’s funny that there are certain people in my life (real people who’ve made an impression on me, not just pop idols) who I still dream about, despite not having seen them for years. I think when you have that true connection, it never really leaves you. Silly as it may sound, I seem to have that connection, one-sided though it may be, with Noel Gallagher. (Like seriously, I just had a dream that I told Noel about my favorite restaurant in Raleigh. He seemed really interested and said he’d check it out.)

The Bee Gees

Height of infatuation: 2017-Present (ages 34-?)

Then/Now: The Bee Gees have been my current obsession, and they’re a good one. They have a lot of albums, and they’ve worked in a wide range of styles, so there’s plenty to delve into. I began getting into The Bee Gees mainly because of Noel Gallagher’s endorsement of their early work. Then, I read the excellent Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! by Bob Stanely, which contains an entire chapter that’s basically a paean to the band. That really set me off, and I’ve been getting to know their catalog over the past year.

The Bee Gees synthesize a lot of what I love about the other bands listed here: the melodicism of the Beatles, the uncoolness of fun., the obtuse yet emotional lyrics (and brotherly dynamics) of Oasis, and occasionally even the country-pop hybrid of the Old 97’s. There’s a passage in Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! where Stanley contemplates his favorite bands. He lists the The Bee Gees as a contender, but ultimately concludes, “Too much to explain.” I actually kind of like how hard it is to explain the disconnect between the band’s popular image as avatars of disco excess and the real wealth of diversity that actually marks their catalog. Like my initial discovery of The Beatles, I feel once again that I’ve discovered a treasure trove that only the privileged few appreciate.

Special soulmate: As much as I’d like it to be Robin, who I think is well under appreciated, Barry is the Bee Gee I think about most. It’s a little hard to say that he’s The Bee Gee’s best song writer, as Maurice and especially Robin were such essential contributors to the band’s compositions. It’s more a collection of compelling things about him. He’s certainly got a swagger, as evidenced in the Stayin’ Alive video, as well as a sense of humor. (Read  almost any Wikipedia entry for a Bee Gees song for some great Barry quotes). It makes me happy that he’s been married for 47 years and has a zillion kids and grandkids. He’s also a bit of a tragic figure at this point. I watched a recent Grammy Salute to The Bee Gees, and it was super sad to see Barry stand up and talk about how all three of his brothers are gone, leaving him to accept the honor on his own. But he also seemed genuinely touched at the celebration of his music, and it really made me like him.

Final thoughts

I’ve read that infatuation is a useful tool because it gets you to fall in love with someone and (theoretically) reproduce. But you can’t stay at that level of obsession forever, because you’d never get anything done. Either the relationship ends or it settles into a much more manageable level of enjoyment and commitment — often known as love. Looking over these bands I’ve been infatuated with, I’m pleased to see that most of have settled down into that mature love state.

I remember once a teacher in high school telling our class that a long term relationship has its ebbs and flows. Sometimes things between her and her husband were fine, and other times they felt like teenagers again. That reflection stuck with me. I see these waves reflected in my relationships to my favorite bands as well. Once the initial infatuation has passed, I’ll experience periods of stability and of renewed interest.

That said, I do still enjoy the fact that new infatuations come along from time to time. It’s exciting to get to relive the feeling of falling in love with a band. And as long as it keeps happening to me, I continue to feel alive and young as a music fan. I hope that I always will.

Relationships with bands can be a lot like relationships with people. Some are pleasant acquaintances who you like, but only seem to run into once in a while. Beck, for example, is someone I want to get to know better, but I just don’t meet him often enough. Others are more like friends in particular circumstances. Like co-worker who’s always up for a coffee break, Real Estate is a band I only listen to when I need something to make my work day a little more bearable, without completely derailing productivity. And then there are the steady, lifelong friends — the ones I can always reconnect with, no matter how long it’s been since we last hung out. Belle and Sebastian, Fountains of Wayne, John Wesley Harding, The Zombies — they have been some of my constant musical companions.

But I can also fall in love with a band, the way I’d fall in love with a person. These relationships are true infatuations. I start neglecting my other musical interests to listen to the beloved band all the time. I find myself thinking about them during work meetings or before falling asleep at night. I develop a conviction that I would connect with a certain songwriter on a deep, personal level, should we ever meet.

These infatuations usually last a couple years, and they always end at some point. Recently I was chatting with an friend about The Old 97’s, a band that we both loved in college, but who I never listen to anymore. It got me thinking about some of these past loves and the way my relationships with them have evolved over time. While the height of infatuation can never last, the experience of being in love with a band leaves its mark, just as it does with people.

The Beatles

Height of infatuation: 1995-circa 1997 (ages 12-14)

Then: I’ve already covered my Beatles obsession quite extensively in a previous post, so I’ll be brief here. The Beatles Anthology television show, which aired in 1995, kicked off my first real music infatuation, which lasted for at least the rest of my middle school years.

Special soulmate: At the time, I suppose it was John. He was the leader, the clever one, the symbol. And he was dead, which somehow made him seem more romantic. My connection to him was vague and immature, but I remember it had something to do with an idealized vision of the 1960s, a time period I became obsessed with after discovering The Beatles. It was a fantasy world of peace and meditation, Agent 99 dresses, and the best music being the most popular. I liked to imagine I had been born in the wrong time, and this perhaps tied into my general feeling of not always fitting in at school. John let me believe I was different in a good way, and that gave me comfort.

Now: While I still love the Beatles, I only listen to them occasionally. I’ve heard their songs so many times that it’s almost like I can’t hear them anymore. But once in a while, I still catch a particular album just right and enjoy it in a fresh way. And I still think about them. I adopted Paul as my true favorite Beatle a while ago, and recently, for the first time ever, I decided on a favorite Beatles song — “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” It so perfectly encapsulates Paul’s melodicism, coupled with nonsense lyrics that nonetheless seem to convey wistful depths on lines like “She could steal, but she could not rob.” Most certainly an influence on Oasis and my future love for Oasis.

The Old 97’s

Height of infatuation: 2001-2005 (ages 18-22)

Then: The first Old 97’s song I heard was “What We Talk About” from 1999’s Fight Songs album. DJ Vin Scelsa played it on his Idiot’s Delight radio program, one of my early gateways into non-mainstream pop. I liked the song, but didn’t get fully into The Old 97’s until their next album, Satellite Rides, came out in 2001, a few months before I graduated high school.

In contrast to my previous obsession with the Beatles and the ’60s, I now loved a band whose creative peak matched the peak of my infatuation. Between 2002 and 2005, I saw The Old 97’s or Rhett Miller about a dozen times, always accompanied by my friend Tom. I remember he told me that I smiled in a different way during these shows, a way that he didn’t really see during my everyday activities. I take this as an indicator that I was enjoying the band in an unselfconscious way that only true love could inspire.

Special soulmate: It didn’t hurt that the Old 97’s lead singer, Rhett Miller, was exactly the kind of frontman that I could without hesitation or embarrassment describe as a dreamboat. (Which I once did, memorably, at a meeting of my college newspaper staff. I think people were surprised, because I’m not usually emotionally demonstrative.) Rhett looked like a model, but and his music was a perfect melding of pop melodies, sex, and literary references. “Rollerskate Skinny” is probably the apotheosis of this combination, from the title allusion to the line “Let’s knock nine down and leave on in the hole.”

Now: The end of college, along with a couple less than perfect albums, spelled the end of my romance with the Old 97’s. I sill love Fight Songs and Satellite Rides, as well as much of their early catalog, but they haven’t had an album I’ve really gotten into since then. On the whole, I’d have to say that The Old 97’s are the past love that I engage with least these days. That’s a little sad to contemplate, but it doesn’t undo the great times I had with the band and what they gave me. They helped me understand the value of country music, discover the transcendence that can be found in a live show, and begin listening to a greater variety of music.

XTC

Height of infatuation: 2008-2010 (Ages 25-27)

Then: XTC was a band who I never got, until I did. As I began to define my music taste more deliberately, I found that I could identify bands I might like using terms like “power pop” or “melodic pop.” XTC always came up as something I should like. I bought a couple of their albums at some point — I think Oranges & Lemons and Wasp Star — but I never really got into them. They sat on the shelf for quite a while.

My interest in XTC was renewed by two events that would prove to be pretty influential in my life. First, I moved in with my then-boyfriend, now-husband Josh, who owned and liked the album Skylarking. Second, we started DVRing 120 Minutes on VH1 Classic. The second item might seem trivial, but Josh and I still watch these music videos together today, and they have been the source for countless music discoveries over the past decade. I think it was “Mayor of Simpleton” — a shimmering, gleeful romp — that resuscitated my interest in the band. From there, I got really into the albums from the second half of their career: Skylarking through Wasp Star.

Special soulmate: I think I needed to be a little bit older to appreciate Andy Partridge’s songwriting style. While he’s certainly capable of crafting the pure pop of “Mayor of Simpleton” or “Stupidly Happy,” he also comes closer to writing intelligently about the meaning of life than any other songwriter I can think of. “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” looks at the power of heroes, but also acknowledges that nobility potentially lies within all people. “Harvest Festival” beautifully conveys the sharpness of first love and the nostalgia of its contemplation. “The Wheel and the Maypole” captures the ever changing nature of existence and the futility of resisting this change. I couldn’t appreciate these sentiments until I had a little more life experience — and it may be a bit laughable to assume I’ve full appreciated them even still. The upside is that there will also be more meaning to find and contemplate in Andy’s songs.

Now: There was no one event that ended my XTC period, it just kind of faded out. The depth and emotional clarity of their songs still resonates for me, and I’d say I now listen to them a normal amount compared with other bands I like. In some ways, they are like an ex-boyfriend who actually manages to become a friend.

Note: This article got very long, so I’m breaking it up into two parts. Part two should be along soon.

2017

I’ve had this copy of The Beatles by Hunter Davies sitting on my bookshelf for twenty years. When I was a teenager, my dad had a friend whose sister worked in publishing. She gave him a lot of pop music books, which he would then lend or give to my dad.¹ Since I loved the Beatles, I tried to hold on to those when I could. But I never actually read The Beatles. Maybe it seemed too big, or maybe I was at a place in my fandom where the music was enough.

What’s a little sad now about the Beatles’ music is that I often feel that I’ve used up much of my lifetime listening quota. I can play any of their albums in my head note for note, so it can be hard to recapture those feelings of joy and wonder when actually hearing the songs. But even now, I find that reading about the Beatles still holds great appeal. It’s a way to bring back some of the magic, to want hear the songs again and to hear them in a new light.

The Beatles, originally published in 1968, is the only ever authorized biography of the band. My edition was published in 1996, and there appear to have been one or two newer editions since then. The book itself is a bit like a ramshackle old house that someone has built too many additions onto. There’s the core text; an introduction and postscript, both from 1985; and a second 1996 introduction. I’d also argue that the personal experiences of any serious fan have a way of sneaking in as well. Reading from cover to cover, you’re jumping around the timeline in an almost postmodern way.

1996

The 1996 introduction, which starts the book, brought on a bit of an emotional rush. This particular reissue was released just after The Beatles Anthology television documentary, which I watched with my parents in 1995 at the age of 12. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this was a life changing experience for me. While I had been listening to the Beatles since the womb — my parents, both born in 1951, are prime boomers — watching The Beatles Anthology inaugurated a period of intense Beatle obsession that would last for the next several years. Reading about it brought back just how much the Beatles meant to me as young teenager.

It was more than just the music. Discovering the Beatles essentially drew a horizontal rule through my life at that point in time. Before the Beatles, to be honest, I was kind of a loser. I mean, I was just a kid and a painfully shy one at that, but I really had no identity or confidence. If people at school were talking about how much they loved “The Sign” or “Whoomp! There It Is,” I would blindly agree, despite never having heard these songs before.² Once a boy gave me a valentine in fourth grade, and I was so embarrassed I immediately threw it away and ignored him for the rest of elementary school. (I still feed bad about that.) My efforts at being invisible were sometimes successful, but more often than not marked me as one of the uncool.

After the Beatles, I became a different person. It may sound unlikely that the simple love of a 30-year-old band could transform me, but it did. I think it gave me the fire of the true believer. I knew that the Beatles were great, and suddenly I didn’t care if the other kids thought I was a weirdo. Luckily I had one friend who also loved them too. We would get our parents to take us to the lame mall head shop where we bought men’s sized Beatles t-shirts that fit us like dresses. We sewed Beatles patches onto our backpacks. In eighth grade, we even convinced our social studies teacher to let us hold a memorial for John Lennon on the anniversary of his death. I believe it consisted of a moment of silence and playing a song on a boombox.

While these antics attracted occasional teasing from other kids, for the most part they actually upped my social cache. It was an early lesson in the paradoxical way that not caring what other people think makes them respect you more. I loved the Beatles simply because I did, and they made me myself in a way I had never been before.

1985

Right, this is supposed to be a book review. Getting back on track, the next layer of The Beatles is the 1985 introduction and postscript. The ’80s strike me as lost years for the  Beatles, though I’m too young to remember them myself. Davies’s reflections during these years are mostly about demythologizing the band — not harshly or gleefully, but realistically.

The introduction is where he acknowledges that some of what he wrote in the 1968 text was cleaned up for the authorized biography. He had to pretend that the Beatles swore less and took fewer drugs, that their marriages were happier than they were. He couldn’t say outright that Brian Epstein was gay, despite Brian granting permission prior to this death. In the postscript, we see the fairytale come to an end. Solo careers are launched, marriages end, legal battles ensue, and John gets shot.

Having not experienced this time period personally, it’s hard for me to conceptualize a world where the Beatles are not the admired musical and cultural heroes they are today. Some of it may also be a result of being an American, which is interesting. Davies describes John Lennon’s image in England in the 1970s as “a harmless eccentric, an oddball who had gone off with that funny woman and was doing funny things and producing occasional funny music.” In America, by contrast, “there had emerged a different John Lennon during the last decade, someone who had become an active spiritual leader, a symbol of a new generations’ struggles and hopes, who could still communicate with millions of young people, even when, for those five years or so, he had hardly been seen or heard.” That’s the Lennon — and the Beatles — I grew up with.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a more recent edition of the book, but I can guess how a newer introduction might read. Between 1, a Cirque de Soleil show, the availability of cute girl-sized t-shirts, the Beatles’ catalog on Spotify, the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, and countless other reintroductions of their music and image, the Beatles seem to have settled into a near-permanent place as pop culture heroes.

1968

The Beatles is still a great read, despite being frozen in 1968. Davies wrote the book after spending over a year observing and interviewing the band, as well as talking with their families and friends. He has a easy, unpretentious style, and it’s clear that his respect for the Beatles, as musicians and people, is genuine. And despite the obvious whitewashing of potentially scandalous material, there are moments of candor that do seem to cut nearer to the truth.

The first several chapters detail the Beatles’ boyhoods in Liverpool, and Davies paints a vivid picture of a time that now seems very far away. Liverpool in the 1950s was a world where people’s parents had jobs like cotton salesman or steward on an ocean liner. Boys rode buses, skipped school, and went largely unsupervised. The idea of a rock group, let alone a British rock group from Liverpool, was still very new. To dream of making a living at it was crazy.

One pattern that emerges during the early part of the book is just how risky it was to hang one’s hat on the Beatles’ future success. John, Paul, and George themselves we so set on music from an early age that they never really took school or jobs seriously. But many of the other players have similar stories of giving up secure, traditional roles to pursue a dream. Ringo was working as an apprentice fitter when he got the chance to join Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.³ Neil Aspinall had a career in accounting, and Mal Evans worked for the Post Office. Even Brian, who admittedly had a better cushion, gave up the life of a traditional businessman to manage an unknown beat group. All of these people quit what they were doing, at great personal risk, to join The Beatles enterprise.

The Beatles themselves were the reason for these leaps of faith. Their music was of course a part of it, but their personal magnetism seems to have been at least an equal factor. Davies’s narrative is drawn to that element as well, focusing more on personalities than music for most of the book. Again and again, we see portraits of fans and compatriots who are compelled by the whole Beatles package. A quote from Klaus Voorman, a fan and friend from the Hamburg years, sums it up well: “I couldn’t get over how they played, how they played together so well, so powerful and funny.” Davies makes the point throughout that the Beatles whole was greater than the sum of its members’ parts.

His portraits of each individual Beatle could hardly be called controversial, but neither are they fawning caricatures. He describes John moping around his house watching TV, and quotes Cynthia as saying that she probably would never have married him if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. He explores Paul’s dual nature as “the cute one,” adored by fans, but also driven and shrewd. George is too serious, deep into his Indian religion phase and not all that keen on Beatledom. And finally Ringo is sort of a regular guy, funny and self-depreciating, but traditional in his home and marriage.

On the whole, Davies doesn’t really try to draw a lot of conclusions about the Beatles. He observes and plainly writes down what he sees. What comes into focus is a a group of four people who, together, were able to create art that was full of beauty and humor. On their own, they are more like normal humans — four talented, lucky humans who nonetheless have their problems and hangups. Davies leaves us at a point in 1968 where the band’s future is an unknown. He resists the temptation to predict their future, and surely no one could have anyway. What The Beatles really does is capture the band at a pivotal moment, poised between past glories and a few more charmed years.

2017

Without really thinking about it, I’ve referred to the Beatles as “heroes” as couple times in this essay. I think that’s a particularly apt term, because as we get farther away from their active years, they become more mythological. Davies himself describes them as “folk heroes” at one point. I wonder if, in two hundred or two thousand years, people will talk about the Beatles they way we talk about Noah’s ark or King Arthur today. This way of looking at them would not be inconsistent with statements that have already been made about the band, from John’s infamous claim that they were more popular than Jesus to Bob Stanley’s recent framing of their success as a literal miracle.⁴

In that framework, the story of their lives becomes almost a holy text, a set of parables that not only describe literal events but that can be returned to time and again to show something new. Perhaps the lesson for me in letting this book sit untouched for 20 years is that there’s a time and place for everything, and that the Beatles, while they may grow old in some ways, can hopefully continue to offer new things as well — a window into another world, a meditation on success, or a prompt to revisit some of my own memories, forever entwined with my love for the band.

The other day when I was working on my post about John Wesley Harding, I made a tangential reference to the Spice Girls’ song “Say You’ll Be There.” I linked to Tom Ewing’s excellent Popular blog, where he has been reviewing every UK number one single. Ewing wrote a very complimentary review of the song, which made me feel a good about liking it. This train of thought also made me realize that, over the years, I have stumbled into a casual Melanie C (aka Sporty Spice) fandom.

I wouldn’t have pegged myself as a Mel C fan — or even a person who has opinions about the Spice Girls — until I started reviewing all of my favorite Mel C songs in one listening session. It turns out she’s recorded a solid handful of pop that I listen to on a fairly regular basis. Here’s a quick rundown of the highlights.

“Say You’ll Be There”

The aforementioned “Say You’ll Be There” is definitely the best Spice Girls song. I never actually liked the Spice Girls much during their mania days. As a teenager I was pathetically pretentious, too obsessed with The Beatles to pay much attention to any group who didn’t write their own songs and play their own instruments. It’s funny that I actually like a lot more of the pop of my youth as an adult than I ever did as a member of its target audience.

“Say You’ll Be There” is incredibly ’90s, but in a good way. It’s got that squealing synth running through it, which I now know is called the “G-Funk whistle.” It’s also got the previously addressed harmonica solo, as well as a super hook and a strong vocal performance by Mel C. The Ewing review points out how excellent her little ad libs during the final chorus are. You just never know what’s going to hold up well.

“Never Be The Same Again”

“Never Be The Same Again” was Mel C’s first solo hit in 1999. And while Wikipedia tells me that it didn’t make the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., I swear I can remember hearing it on the radio in high school. The overall sound is subtly more like the late ‘90s than the mid-‘90s, though I suppose you’d have to have been a teenager during those years to actually make this distinction. I just know that it reminds me of NSYNC’s No Strings Attached, which came out about six months later. Mel sounds more restrained than on her Spice Girls recordings, and the song has a nice wriggly melody.

What’s compelling about this song is the ambiguity of the lyrics coupled with a minor key. While a straight interpretation of the song might be “we were friends, then something romantic happened between us and now we’re embarking on a bright new future as a couple,” it could just as easily be “oh my God, what have I done?” Or maybe the singer doesn’t know, asking “Is this something that I might regret?” Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez of TLC ties things up with a cool rap verse and offers a little more optimism: “Though improbable it’s not impossible./For a love that could be unstoppable.” But on the whole, I like the ambiguity better.

“Independence Day”

This 2002 track was a deep cut from the soundtrack to Bend It Like Beckham. I picked up on it thanks to the late, great Pseu’s Thing with a Hook radio show on WFMU. It’s straight-up pure pop, with all R&B or hip-hop influences stripped away, and it’s probably my favorite Mel C song. It opens with some chiming guitars that later become crunchy, and it’s much more rock than any of Mel’s previous work. The arrangement is very good throughout, including a quirky middle eight with some distorted piano and a nice little coda.

More than anything, “Independence Day” comes across like a solo singer-songwriter performance. The vocal is mostly just a single track of Mel singing, without a lot of back-ups or harmonies layered on. The subject matter is also quite different from her previous hits. Rather than a relationship song, “Independence Day” is a textbook uplifting personal anthem, well-suited to the accompanying film and one suspects a new phase in Mel’s life and career as well. Mel is credited as a co-writer, and there’s a sincerity and exuberance to the performance that’s quite winning.

“I Know Him So Well”

First of all, I love “I Know Him So Well.” I’ve been obsessing over the original version from Chess for a while now. So when I saw that Mel C had recorded a cover of the song — as a duet with Emma “Baby Spice” Bunton! — I was pretty excited to hear it. Their version doesn’t really add much that’s new to the original, but it’s quite well executed. The arrangement is warmer, focused on piano and strings rather than synths. Mel is back to a belting-out style on her lead verse, but she also shines as a backup vocalist for Emma.  The material is just so good that I suspect that any two reasonability talented and committed singers could wring an emotional performance out of it. Still, I’ve come back to this version more times than I would have expected.

To sum up: I have a favorite Spice Girl, and it’s Melanie C. She’s the best singer of the group, and she’s recorded a surprising amount of quality material. It’s admittedly strange that I would choose to embark on this topic in 2017, but I just never know when one of these pop vortices is going to open up and lead me to (re)discover a set of tunes that I never would have chosen with my left brain.