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.