Melanie C
Melanie C
Red Girl Media
Listen Below
Melanie C has been in the business of making records for well over twenty years—first as one-fifth of the Spice Girls and then later as a solo artist. To regard the Liverpool born vocalist and songwriter as anything less than an experienced veteran at this juncture would be foolish.
However, battling back assumptions is something Melanie C is not unfamiliar with; she has used her commitment to her art as her sword and shield to best even her harshest critics. Subsequently, Melanie C epitomizes the pop music survivor who—across multiple albums—has now carved out a wholly unique space all to herself.
It is in this spirit that Melanie C’s eponymous eighth set plays as such a pivotal project for the Spice Girl, post-Version of Me (2016). The issuance of that record—her seventh—marked a partial break from the stylistically expansive AOR and adult contemporary that defined a considerable bulk of her anterior output. Supplanting those elements, Melanie C utilized a crisp combination of danceable electronics and contemporary R&B—genre devices used effectively, if sparingly on said preceding material—to awesome effect. Version of Me won her rave notices and solid showings at home on the British charts.
As the requisite live show duties for that effort kicked off the following year, Melanie C was suddenly open to engage with new experiences in her life and career. One such development was her participation in the second formal Spice Girls reunion for the Spice World – 2019 Tour: a thirteen-date, U.K. stadium concert series. After the rousing success of that undertaking, Melanie C began gigging in select global territories with the LGBTQ+ performance troupe Sink the Pink! at various Pride events. The drafting process for Melanie C had begun as early as 2017, but a newfound confidence gleaned from her adventures in 2019 translated a discernible energy to the long player.
For the scripting and smithing of Melanie C, the heroine it is named for gathered an eclectic coterie of writer-producers to aid her; the roster includes (but isn’t limited to) Richard Stannard, Paul Stavely O’Duffy, Ash Howes, Alexandra “Shura” Denton, George Reid, One Bit (Jonty Howard, Joe Murphy) and Future Cut (Tunde Babalola, Darren Lewis).
Melanie C graces close to nearly all ten of the compositions contained on the album as a writer with just a few exceptions; the deluxe edition rounds out the tracklisting from ten to fourteen pieces in total. Out of the four bonus cuts on the expanded iteration of Melanie C, one is a respectable cover of Rui da Silva and Cassandra Fox’s progressive, Noughties house chestnut “Touch Me.”
In many respects, Melanie C is an extension of the digital and pop-soul texturing emblematic of Version of Me; how the songstress differentiates Melanie C from its predecessor is by tabling the chillier aesthetics for warmer ones. Take the first three sides of Melanie C—“Who I Am,” “Blame It On Me,” and “Good Enough”—all of them are rooted in a glowing, synth-pop sound aimed at the dancefloor. These jams are like a rush of sonic serotonin that stand in polite, if sharp relief to the archness heard on Version of Me. That isn’t to say that the latter artistic action was inferior to the former, it’s just the choice Melanie C decided to enact here.
This balmy, electric approach is further expounded upon via “Escape,” “Here I Am” and “Nowhere to Run.” A gorgeously ambient triad of midtempos function as great vehicles for Melanie C’s ever expressive vocal instrument; she convincingly delivers their emotionally charged texts that vend in the album’s central theme: self-discovery. Elsewhere on Melanie C, the singer-songwriter slips into other compelling musical guises—like the aforementioned pop-soul vibe from Version of Me—as demonstrated with “Overload” and “Fearless.”
“Overload” is a funky stepper flecked with bass guitar rhythms; “Fearless” is a gauzy hip-hop number sporting a saucy side of rap bars from British emcee Nadia Rose. The non-deluxe configuration of Melanie C closes out with the four-on-the-floor firestarter of “In and Out of Love” and the balladic showstopper “End of Everything,” an impressive display of pop opposites.
For a woman like Melanie C who has been refining and reimagining her craft for some time now, her current self-titled affair is, in effect, not too far removed from her typical association with high quality material. What makes Melanie C unique is the sense of its creator’s personal freedom that suffuses its song stock—this makes the long player a singular body of work within her growing catalog.
Quentin Harrison is the author of Record Redux: Spice Girls, the first written overview of the Spice Girls’ collective and individual canon which was originally published in 2016. He is currently working on an overhauled volume of the book to be made available for purchase in Summer 2021; the first edition has been discontinued in lieu of the forthcoming issuance of the revamped book. Harrison has published four other books in his 'Record Redux Series' on Carly Simon, Donna Summer, Madonna and Kylie Minogue that are currently available physically and digitally.
Notable Tracks: “End of Everything” | “Fearless” | “Overload” | “Who I Am”
LISTEN: