TMS Muse of the Week: Melanie C

(Mirrorpix)

If you paid attention to pop music in the late 1990s, you heard the tomboy of the Spice Girls, Melanie Chisholm [AKA, Melanie C, Mel C or Sporty Spice] was two things: the allegedly most talented of the girl group, and supposedly the least feminine. Both are a bit fallacious when you learn more about the vocalist and her mega famous music act. Most music fans might be surprised to learn that Mel and Victoria Beckham [née Adams], the miscredited ‘untalented’ Spice member, sang most of the lead vocals on the original 1994 demos before the Spices signed with Virgin Records. I’m partial to ‘Do You Think About Me’ and ‘Is This Love?’ where you can hear Victoria’s Sade-esque vocals blend well with Mel’s recognizable high notes, Emma Bunton’s sweet tone and Melanie Brown’s alto/bass quality. And if you want to see how pretty Mel C is, you just have to look up the music video for their 1997 single ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ to find the doe-eyed brunette in a strappy party dress, voluminous hair and subtle make-up. It's both surprising, yet not surprising, Mel ended up the Spice Girl with the most interesting solo efforts after the group’s superstardom died down in 1998 when Geri ‘Ginger Spice’ Halliwell abandoned ship.

As a Spice fan, you quickly notice the formula of a typical SG song. Geri, Mel B, Emma and Victoria on the verses, Emma on the bridge, Mel B and Victoria as the lower registers, Geri and Mel B for ad-libbed raps; and Mel C for the soprano ad-libs on nearly every song outro plus her own occasional verse or bridge in the middle of a song. For my money, the best examples of Mel C’s singing are on ‘Say You’ll be There’ and ‘Naked’ off the Spices’ self-titled 1996 debut LP and ‘Too Much’ from their 1997 follow-up ‘Spiceworld.’ When things started winding down after SG recorded and released their third album, and first as a foursome, ‘Forever’ (2000), Mel was already ahead of the curve with a hit duet, ‘When You’re Gone’ (1998), alongside singer-songwriter Bryan Adams; and her first and most successful solo album, ‘Northern Star’ (1999). The latter would ultimately be the biggest seller and best received solo effort from a Spice Girl, and included the hit singles ‘I Turn to You’ and ‘Never be the Same Again’ [featuring Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes of TLC], as well as the fan favorites ‘Go!,’ ‘Ga Ga,’ and the title track. Despite her famous girl group parting ways and wanting new, more mature identities, Mel leaned into the tomboy/athletic aesthetic for a while in 2000-01 with a blonde pixie cut [though she later revealed her hair stylist at the time actually cut off more than she intended].

(Dave Hogan)

It would have been easy to stick Mel C into the pop sound like many of her peers, but she branched out into musical theatre with a 2009-2010 UK revival of Willy Russell’s ‘Blood Brothers’ and the 2012-13 revival of Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ as Mary Magdalene. You can see ‘Sporty Spice’ isn’t just an alter ego either in music videos too, like for the 1996 Spice smash hit ‘Wannabe,’ plus ‘Say You’ll be There’ and ‘Too Much,’ where she shows off her impressive high kicks and back flips. If listeners were pleasantly surprised by Mel’s success as a solo artist, they probably were also at her love life. Though the sweatpants and short hair resulted in brief, cliché lesbian rumors, Mel actually has the most intriguing list of ex-boyfriends in the Spice Girls. Such as boyband members Robbie Williams of Take That and Jason Brown of 5ive, Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn [who later claimed their supposed fling was ‘nothing at all’], and singer-lyricist Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mel is the English girl to Anthony’s American man referenced on the RHCP track ‘Emit Remmus’ on the rock band’s 1999 LP ‘Californication.’ In 2009, the popstar gave birth to daughter Scarlett while in a relationship with then serious boyfriend Thomas Starr. Just this year, Mel wrote and published her own memoir Who I Am, where she went into detail behind the scenes of her life and career, including in-depth stories on her past history of eating disorders, overexercising and being sexually violated right before ‘Wannabe’ dropped as a single.

People like to toss aside pop, and especially teen/bubblegum pop, as inferior to rock, hip-hop and alternative music, most obviously with acts as heavily involved with marketing as the Spice Girls. But Mel C is one of the pop artists I always point to when this comes up. She’s been running the gamut from upbeat to ballads to showtunes to acoustic to dance mixes for almost three decades. If you wanna see beyond the stereotype, you gotta pay attention to the body of work.