Melanie B
Hot
(Virgin)
http://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/20001009061546.html
Executed with the kind of ruthless strategic efficiency that makes
the SAS seem ill-prepared by comparison, the rapid deployment and
manipulation of solo Spice Girls into whichever strain of pop is
fleetingly in vogue has been, if nothing else, a triumph for the
marketing team at Virgin Records.
Posh paired up with UK garage while it had its 15 minutes this
summer. Mel C continues to flounder excruciatingly between indie
and trance. Emma is scheduled for saccharine ballads in the new
year (after the third Spice Girls project proper). And this week,
rough, tough Melanie B plays the superfly scrub-dissin', fur-wearin'
bitch, so 'Hot' she's taking a shower in a desert on the record
sleeve, thereby displaying what many consider to be her two greatest
assets.
It's hard to overstate just how bad this record is. By spreading her
meagre vocal range thinly across a selection of even slimmer songs,
Melanie Bore is pouting proof that not even the world's finest
producers can right something so emphatically wrong. 'Hot' is
notable if only because it unites on one album the brains behind
modern US R&B, namely Fred Jerkins, Teddy 'Blackstreet' Riley and
the dream team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis; four men whose mission
it was to transform Mel B into something she can never be: American.
Yet how they tried. Jerkins offers 'Lullaby', a pretty TLC-style
ballad, while Jam and Lewis' equally charming 'Feels So Good' is
ruined from the start by the sound of Our Mel from Leeds bleating
about getting "all soft an' smoo-cheh" in fluent Yorkshire. 'Pack
Your Shit' (risque - but hey, that's the image she's trying to
cultivate) finds Riley employing second-hand Timbaland beats as Mel
simpers angrily about love-rat hubby Jimmy G, and she plummets to
Halliwell-esque depths of contrived 'love speak' - "I can feel it
baby, come closer" etc - on the stillborn 'Feel Me Now'.
As deeply personal as this whole record undoubtedly is, it's
difficult to take seriously as an artist a woman whose lavish but
doomed wedding 'coincided' with the week of release of her duet
with Missy 'Misdemeanor' Elliott, 'I Want You Back', the only track
here that sounds vaguely contemporary. The remainder are but ticks
in boxes representing target audience demographics and generic
musical bases covered.
In that respect, Melanie B has something for everyone. But by the
same token, she gives us absolutely nothing. Roll on the next Spice
Girls product. Gosh, the fun never stops.
Piers Martin
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