September 26, 2001

Victoria Beckham : Victoria Beckham

If she's to avoid becoming the new Edna Everage, Posh Spice needs to take it up a class...

4 / 10 She's "tha luckiest gel in tha wewld" - a quid for every mile to the sun, a vaguely coherent husband, the ability to reproduce, must be heaven - but when it comes to the charts, Vicky B's always the bridesmaid. Whether kyboshed by Kylie or stiffed by Sophie, every chart humiliation suffered by the People's Other Princess is seen by the general public as an outrage - she's paid for her Number One, how dare she be cheated out of it by more talented artists with better songs!

Sad, isn't it, that celebrity outranks ability in pop every time, and 'Victoria Beckham' marks a new low in shameless pop slaggery. The garage trimmings which let her down on 'Out Of Your Mind' have been dropped quicker than a moist turd in favour of a hotch-potch ofBritney ('Not Such An Innocent Girl'), Destiny's Child ('Girlfriend'), Jo Lo ('A Mind Of It's Own' (sic)) and Mariah Carey (soppy-as-a-stagnant-swamp ballad 'That Kind Of Girl'). And it's a painfully soulless business - the only personal insight we get into the Victoria Beckham Enigma is that she's so desperate to stay famous that she'll happily do a karaoke rehash of any old R&B cobblers her army of producers tells her to. Even when 'Midnight Fantasy' comes on like a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into the Becks' boudoir with sultry lines like "Anything you wanna try I just might/I'll wake you from your sleep and we'll go on all night", you're put off by the thought of David going "wew dahlin', ya did wew in the first fifteen minutes."

Her initials spelt in diamonds on the cover may remind you how much she deserves success but, if she's to avoid becoming the new Edna Everage, Posh Spice needs to take it up a class.

Mark Beaumont

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