Happy 20th Anniversary to Victoria Beckham’s eponymous debut solo album Victoria Beckham, originally released October 1, 2001.
At the outset of the millennium, the British music scene was not lacking for eclectic characters: Andy Lysandrou and Johnny Lisners—known in aggregate as the True Steppers—were two such individuals. Their first (and only) album True Stepping came courtesy of BMG Records on November 27, 2000 via its ancillary Ice Cream and NuLife imprints.
A fashionable raft of dance music set into the garage style, Lysandrou and Lisners recruited a colorful roster of artists to breathe life into their tracks: Donnell Jones, Keke le Roc, Neutrino, Top Cat, Alan Chan, The Enforcer, Brian Harvey (of East 17), Dane Bowers (of Another Level) and Victoria Beckham (of the Spice Girls). Prior to the unveiling of True Stepping, the duo issued two call-and-response singles: “Buggin’” and “Out of Your Mind.”
The former cut, dropped in the spring of 2000, was anchored by Bowers and sailed comfortably into the U.K. Top 10; the latter single, led primarily by Beckham (with Bowers guesting), followed in the summer. A sizable portion of critics that once dismissed Beckham’s contributions to the Spice Girls found themselves charmed by “Out of Your Mind.” That August, Music Week wrote of the kinetic floorfiller, “Who would have thought that Posh Spice would re-emerge as the most credible of the Spices? Although not as immediate as “Buggin’,” the True Steppers’ second release is a sure-shot contender for the top of the charts.”
“Out of Your Mind” ended up only taking second place in the U.K. Singles Chart, besting the sixth position claimed by “Buggin’”—the eventual gold-seller moved 180,584 copies in its initial week. Numbers wise, Beckham surpassed her fellow Spice Girls’ foregoing solo ventures in relation to first week sales, a title she retains. Part of this outcome was owed to the public interest surrounding Beckham who was finally taking flight separate from the group that brought her to prominence. And, right or wrong, in record buyers’ eyes, the True Steppers and Bowers were seen as secondary to her. The three gentlemen took it in stride, understanding that their alliance with Beckham was ultimately a rewarding experience for all concerned, audience opinions aside.
Despite those positives, “Out of Your Mind” was marked as a soft failure for stopping one chart position short of first place. By then, three of her four group mates—Melanie B, Geri Horner and Melanie C—had scored one or more number-ones. In April 2001, Emma Bunton joined their ranks with “What Took You So Long?” sequestering itself at the pole position for two weeks. One can only imagine how heavy the burden of expectation weighed on Beckham.
Work had begun back in the fall of 1999 on the album soon-to-be crowned Victoria Beckham. The long player didn’t surface on the Virgin label until October 1, 2001—close to two years after its start date. Outside of Beckham’s own exacting nature to get this record just right, her commitments as a young wife, mother and Spice Girl competed for her attention: she managed to maintain her creative equilibrium and juggle those responsibilities.
Much of Victoria Beckham was conceived, scripted and smithed around sessions for the third (and conclusive) Spice Girls effort Forever (2000). Reduced to a quartet after Horner’s exit on May 31, 1998, the remaining Spice Girls retooled their approach which left more room for each of them to shine as singers and writers. Beckham, already a likable presence on Spice (1996) and Spiceworld (1997), used this opportunity to show what else she was capable of—she delivered on Forever.
Naturally, this confidence made its way into Victoria Beckham—she co-scripted on eleven of the fifteen selections from this period. Writer-producer notables, as chosen by Beckham, featured Matt Prime, Dane Bowers, Chris Braide, Harvey Mason Jr., Rhett Lawrence, Andrew Frampton, Steve Kipner, David Frank (of The System), Kenneth Karlin and Carsten Schack. With the right team at her disposal, Beckham went about actualizing her aesthetic goal of something cool, but approachable, something commercial, but engaging; she also homed in on a genre close to her heart.
In interviews prior to and after the release of her self-titled LP, Beckham consistently evinced how expansive her listening tastes were, but she always returned to rhythm and blues. Her fondness for figures like Anita Baker, Beverley Knight, Janet Jackson and Toni Braxton was certainly no secret. On many of the tracks constructed for Victoria Beckham, a balance of classic and (then) contemporary soul sonics paired to Beckham’s pop base is achieved. From the late 1980s R&B slow jam “That Kind of Girl” on over to the digitized hip-hop funk of “Girlfriend,” the two tracks demonstrated that Beckham definitely had a bit of bounce to her vibe.
Interestingly, she would forgo any further garage excursions, the success of “Out of Your Mind” notwithstanding. It’s true that nothing on Victoria Beckham approximates the clubland intensity of the True Steppers match-up, but there’s still plenty of grooves to be had on the record and two (of three) outtakes turned B-sides. Those two flipsides are “Always Be My Baby” and “Feels So Good,” modish R&B uptempos aimed at the dancefloor that feature opposite “A Mind of Its Own,” one of two singles culled from Victoria Beckham. It was on that A-side where Beckham further explored her cited pop sound—straight, no chaser.
“A Mind of Its Own,” along with “I.O.U.” and “In Your Dreams”—that latter piece the third mentioned outtake/B-side—are plush, adult contemporary downtempos cast in warm programming washes and orchestral curio. The arrangements frame Beckham’s tuneful, melodic voice as proof that she could stand on her own as a vocalist.
The balladic material (there are six in total from the Victoria Beckham sessions), points to a softer, reflective side to Beckham as a writer. This autobiographical streak is even more pronounced with “Unconditional Love” and “Every Part of Me,” a two-part closer to the album that functions as respective dedications to her husband (David) and son (Brooklyn). Whereas “Unconditional Love” stumbles over its well-meaning, if saccharine mood, “Every Part of Me” is a genuinely moving affair linked to an occasional maternal leitmotif in the collective and individual output of the Spice Girls. But Beckham’s pen wasn’t only confined to sentimental fare.
“Like That,” “Midnight Fantasy,” “No Trix, No Games,” “I Wish,” and “Watcha Talkin’ ‘Bout” are sharp songs where Beckham repurposes the “round the way girl” posture from that first Spice Girls record—albeit in a mature way. No one can contest the welcome sassiness expressed in these tracks, however, some suspension of belief is required for a few of them. But, if listeners embrace them as the character driven pop vehicles that they are, they’re big fun. Yet, there was at least one thematic union between the real and imagined iterations of Beckham that she actioned with the last composition drafted for the record: “Not Such an Innocent Girl.”
Scripted in cooperation by decorated scribes Andrew Frampton and Steve Kipner, the tune was originally sung by American pop hopeful Willa Ford in 2000. For reasons unknown, her version was withheld from her 2001 set Willa Was Here. That spring, Beckham had wrapped the bulk of her debut when, at the eleventh hour, she opted to field additional material. Virgin’s A&R hotlined “Not Such an Innocent Girl” over to Beckham for consideration.
As described in the second edition of my book Record Redux: Spice Girls, Beckham located something in the lyrical make-up of the track that resonated with her, “Just past the surface of its “T.K.O. me / fall in love / don’t be scared you’ll break my heart” trope were ideas of female duality and transformation.” It didn’t hurt that “Not Such an Innocent Girl” happened to sync up with the broader sonic arc of Victoria Beckham; it was “a new-meets-classic composite of urban-pop synthetics à la Paula Abdul mixed with Jennifer Lopez,” as I also remark upon in my book. Backed by the aforementioned “In Your Dreams” on its B-side, “Not Such an Innocent Girl” was made available for purchase September 17, 2001 as Beckham’s lead-off single.
The critical goodwill displayed toward the aspiring solo act’s outing with Dane Bowers and the True Steppers seemingly vanished overnight. The music and tabloid press in the United Kingdom cruelly aligned to knock Beckham down. Things escalated further when pundits ginned up a non-existent “battle” between her and the Princess of Pop, Kylie Minogue. Enjoying her own recent resurgence in the United Kingdom, Minogue continued her upward momentum with the issuance of “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” ahead of her eighth album, Fever. Both Beckham and Minogue’s singles had gone into shops the same day there—their corresponding records were to repeat this pattern in two weeks’ time.
A similar situation had occurred a year earlier when critics tried to pit Beckham against fellow British pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor, who had herself partnered with a contemporary dance producer. While Ellis-Bextor and Cristiano Spiller nabbed the top spot with “Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love),” in that instance, both it and “Out of Your Mind” were seen as equally hip, if different exercises in dance-pop.
Much of the vitriol directed at “Not Such an Innocent Girl,” a single where Beckham’s passion was readily apparent, had nothing to do with her craft—it had everything to do with the perception of her celebrity. This animus only increased when Victoria Beckham was loosed between a memoir (Learning to Fly) and a television documentary (Being Victoria Beckham). Incidental as it might have been, this burst of promotional activity from Beckham fed into the bigger quandary of overexposure that all of the Spice Girls faced at the end of 2001.
That Beckham scored a U.K. Top 10 hit with “Not Such an Innocent Girl” and that its parent album mirrored this feat on the Official Album Charts meant nothing—anything less than number-one wasn’t “good enough.” One other single, “A Mind of Its Own,” was lifted from Victoria Beckham and coasted into the same sixth place position “Not Such an Innocent Girl” had—but it sold fewer copies. Talk of reworking “I Wish,” a deep cut from the LP, as a duet with pop-soul singer Robbie Craig was halted. Beckham and the label parted company thereafter, but she wasn’t without a contract for long.
A deal with Telstar Records was procured in June of 2002 before she gave birth to her second son (Romeo) that September. Beckham’s tenure at Telstar saw her generate enough stock for two albums. Yet just one single, “This Groove”/“Let Your Head Go,” was formally put forward. When that double A-side reached third place within the U.K. Top 10, Beckham became the only Spice Girl to land every one of her solo singles there to date. Unfortunately, the financial collapse of Telstar in 2004 scuttled the sophomore follow-up to Victoria Beckham.
A series of unofficial leaks in the ensuing years gave the curious a chance to hear what Beckham was cooking up, post-Virgin. Fans denominated the two shelved collections as Open Your Eyes and Come Together, named after two tracks housed on each of those albums. Excluding her input on “Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)” and “Voodoo,” two new songs from the Spice Girls’ inaugural hits package unleashed in 2007, Beckham departed the music industry in late 2008 with a pivot into fashion. This vocational shake-up changed the course of Beckham’s career, and today she has risen up as one of the most recognizable and respected designers in the world.
One can only imagine what Beckham could have accomplished had she been allowed to find her footing musically without the various external pressures she had to endure. As it is, Victoria Beckham is a solid, likable batch of mainstream pop that remains a key part to the larger, fascinating whole of the Spice Girls’ story.
Read more about Victoria Beckham and the Spice Girls in the second edition of Quentin Harrison's book Record Redux: Spice Girls, which is available to order here; he uses the ambitious project to trace the rise of the British quintet by examining every studio album and single in their respective group and solo repertoires. Additional entries in the Record Redux Series include the second edition of Record Redux: Kylie Minogue issued in 2022.
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