Baby Spice comes up with 1st solo album

No, Emma Bunton, also known as Baby Spice has not gone the way of her friends Posh Spice Victoria Adams and Scary Spice Melanie Brown who are now wife and mothers. Neither has she gone the route of the wayward Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell, who suddenly left the group three years ago. Maybe it can be safely said she is following in the footsteps of Sporty Spice Melanie Chisholm by dabbling in solo recording while remaining very much a part of the Spice Girls.

Emma recently came out with her first solo album A Girl Like Me and from the way it sounds, it looks like the most underrated Spice Girl of all has come up with a real winner. Baby Spice not only shows off more than adequate vocals. And they said that she can’t sing. She also has a sweet, refreshing style that sounds all young and innocent. Just like a baby. Best of all though, she had a hand in the writing and production of most of the songs included. I know that there are talks going around that we will not see the release of a new Spice Girls album within the next few years or maybe even never.

Rest assured though that after A Girl Like Me, Baby Spice is already assured of a solo performing career.

The first hit out of the album is the extremely catchy What Took You So Long? which I am sure you have heard loads of times but had no inkling it comes from a Spice Girl. Britney should be eating her heart out over this one. Also standouts are her covers of Sunshine on a Rainy Day by Zoe and What I Am by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. The sweetest goodie of them all though is the lovely love song A World Without You. Teen ballads like this one are made to last and last and last ad infinitum.

Other cuts included in Emma’s solo debut are Take My Breath Away, High on Love, Spell It Out, Been There, Done That, Better Be Careful, We’re Not Gonna Sleep Tonight, She Was a Friend of Mine and the title track, A Girl Like Me.

Now, as for that ex-Spice Girl, Geri, she is doing very well as a solo act and has recently released her second album, Scream If You Wanna Go Faster. The bad news here is that it looks like she is not as inclined to taking risks with this one as she did with her first, Schizophonic. The good news though is that this one firmly establishes Geri’s hold on pop music territory. The contents of the album is pop music of the most listenable sort with bits and pieces of R&B, dance, rock, ballads moving in a breathless pace with its hook-laden melodies.

The top gun of the collection is the rousing single girl anthem It’s Raining Men. First popularized by the Weather Girls in 1981. Geri’s version first surfaced as the prime cut in the motion picture version of the big-selling British novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary and it is now also the first single release out of Scream If You Wanna Go Faster. There were talks that the British were not too pleased about the choice of Texan Renee Zellweger to play the title role in the movie. I am sure though that nobody objected to Geri singing the theme. She is after all, the sort of girl who can break into song and dance with the proper aplomb should it begin to rain men.

Like Emma, Geri is also credited with co-writing all of her materials save for the oldie It’s Raining Men. She has also taken the trouble to classify the contents of the album. For the Heart: Calling, Circles Round the Moon, Strength of a Woman, Love is the Only Light, Lovey Dovey Stuff and I Was Made That Way; The Broken Heart: Don’t Call Me Baby; For the Mind: Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, Love is the Only Light, Heaven and Hell and I Was Made That Way, Sexy, Shake Your Bootie Cutie, Feels Like Sex; and To Make You Move: Scream If You Wanna Go Faster, Shake Your Bootie Cutie, Feels Like Sex and It’s Raining Men.

So you now know which cuts to go to depending on your mood.