People may call her Sporty Spice, but Northern Star shows that Melanie Chisholm is more than a cheeky sideshow act. This album is a 180-degree sound and image makeover that deserves attention. Gone are Mel's track suits and ponytails; these days, Sporty sports a sexy spike hairdo, trimmer figure, nose ring and a touch of attitude. Northern Star doesn't totally abandon the syrup-pop format, but its mix of guitar songs, dance tracks and R&B flavors provides a more variegated and engaging effort than might be expected. It would be remiss to call this a classic, but musically, it is light years ahead of the Spice Girls' cotton-candy fluff.
Popping in this album for the first time, I didn't expect much. I'm not a Spice Girls fan; I don't like their music and don't even think they're cute. British rock rags like Q have tossed around a bunch of hype about Mel C being the quiet one and "the one who can actually sing." As Brits are wont to do, they latched onto her image makeover as a source of controversy-was Mel C going to quit the band? Was she a lesbian? Being an American and a non-fan, I was insulated from that hullabaloo-this side of the pond, we're used to pop-star makeovers (see: Madonna, Garth Brooks, Britney Spears' chest), and our pop groups seem to be mostly male. About girl group or boy group music in general, I could give a damn.
That may be why when this album fired off with the crunchy, guitar driven "Go!" I felt a sense
Maybe today's bubblegum climate has deep-sixed my standards. Maybe I'm a subconscious Spicephile. I don't think so, though, and here's why: this record has a team of twelve heavyweight producers behind it whose combined output reads like a pop-chart Who's Who. From William Orbit, the svengali behind Madonna's award-winning revival, to Rick Rubin, the studio wizard who has given his golden touch to everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to the Black Crowes to Slayer, there are enough music-biz masterminds at work here that a record by just about anybody could come out somewhere in average territory.
At minimum, this album reflects those collaborators favorably. It's a respectable mix of engaging songs that put Melanie's average pipes over catchy, radio-ready instrumentals. The first single, "Goin' Down," with its peach-fuzz guitar and lightly distorted vocals exemplifies the new sound. Northern Star is pop music with a butterknife edge-it's harmless, but at least it's got one. Many of these faintly noisy guitar tracks couldn't clear the cutting room floor in Spiceworld. Even with its roughed-up sound, every song on Northern Star still has generous, fluffy hooks, the gilt of stardom for radio and MTV.
Though this album shows that the production team knows what it's doing, the trademarks of each individual producer are sometimes too distinct. Within four songs, the record lurches from two whiz-bang glitzy rockers to the melancholy pop of Northern Star to N'Sync and Madonna vet Rick Nowels' electronica-lite on "I Turn To You." The guest appearance by TLC's Left Eye on the Rhett Lawrence (Mariah Carey, Monica) produced "Never Be the Same Again" makes the song a potential R&B crossover. Despite the quality of the songs, Northern Star's mood is mushy and its feel is scattered. As with the Spice Girls, its ballads are pure hell. With all the studio talent in the world, it still takes a serious musician to produce an album rather than a singles collection.
To be fair, Melanie wrote and co-produced several of the tracks, and she deserves credit for taking this sort of creative leap regardless of whose idea it was. Northern Star may well be the Spice Girl Ray of Light-it's a timely effort that, without breaking any new ground, navigates the current field exceptionally well. This album shows that Melanie C is perhaps better prepared than any of her bandmates to be a star in her own right. In a market saturated with Spice-related solo products, Northern Star leaves only one question: "Who the hell was Geri Halliwell?"
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.