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I know that some people will read that title and thing ‘really…’ So let me put it out there that I am huge fan of Victoria Beckham and her music. In the Spice Girls’ heyday I would get together with the other girlfriends in my street and we’d create our own Spice routines. I was always Posh Spice and I made sure I perfected that pointing she used to do.
When the Spice Girls started to go their separate ways, I was overjoyed when Victoria announced that she was going to release a solo single. That song was ‘Out of Your Mind‘, which was a collaboration with Truesteppers and that Dane bloke from Another Level. The song was an amazing garage influenced tune and I spent the whole summer of 2000 blasting it out, much to the annoyance of my family on a trip to Ireland where they were stuck in a car with me repeating ‘Out of Your Mind’ over and over again.
Sadly the song was beaten to Number 1 by Spiller and Sophie Ellis-Bextor (who I must say is absolutely fabulous) with Groovejet. At the time I was outraged. Part of me still is, but I now recognise how good Groovejet is. I was so outraged that I cried. I wanted Victoria to succeed and become the worldwide solo singer that I knew she could be.
Thankfully Victoria didn’t give up at that point. In 2001 Posh released ‘Not Such An Innocent Girl‘. Although not as good as ‘Out of Your Mind’, I still loved the song and danced around my bedroom to it with gay abandon. The song reached Number 6 in the charts, as did the next single ‘A Mind Of Its Own‘. Although they are respectable chart positions, Victoria was slated for not being as successful as she had been as part of the Spice Girls or even as successful as the other solo Spices. Posh was subsequently ‘dropped’ from her record label and I wept once more. It seemed like I was the only one who was into Victoria’s music and genuinely wanted her to succeed. I feared it was the end, but there was more to come.
In late 2003, Victoria Beckham emerged with new music. The song she was to release was her best work to date. That song was ‘Let Your Head Go‘. A dancey number, it was (and still is) three minutes and 48 seconds of brilliance. The video that goes with it is also brilliant. It depicts Victoria as a bitchy, mentally unstable star who in the first twenty seconds shouts “piss off” at her clearly gay assistants. I believe it is a totally underrated song and I have spent the last ten years baffled at why it wasn’t absolutely huge. It got to Number 3 in the charts, but that was after a massive publicity campaign that saw Vic appearing on just about every television show going. She was disappointed. I was disappointed. The public ridiculed her. I cried once more. Chris Crocker had nothing on me when I began shouting “LEAVE VICTORIA ALONE”!
And that brings us to the end of Victoria Beckham’s career as a solo singer. It didn’t work out as it should have done and that greatly disappoints me. But as I sit here with ‘Let Your Head Go’ on repeat I find comfort in the fact that at least I had good taste in music and supported her. Now I order you all to watch the video for this pop gem and revel in its fabulousness.
