She can hardly sing, she would rarely smile, and she mostly looked like she didn’t want to be there in the first place — yet, the Spice Girls have bid farewell with Victoria Beckham prevailing as the real victor of the celebrity sweepstakes.
The roars of approval meeting her every star turn at the so-called last-ever Spice Girls show last night at the Air Canada Centre sealed that deal. While the other four members sang a solo number throughout the three-month reunion tour, Posh Spice spent her spotlight turn strutting down the catwalk in deference to the group’s embalmed-looking fashion designer, Roberto Cavalli, who appeared on the overhead screen right before the concert encouraging all to enjoy the show.
And, earlier in the day, Beckham spent an hour at Holt Renfrew to promote her spring dVb line of denim, eyewear and fragrances. Not since Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee thrust himself into de facto “frontman” status thanks to footage of him driving a boat with his appendage between rounds of fornication with Pamela Anderson was such pop star status lavished upon a relative background player.
Oh, there were attempts to maintain Posh’s stature as a recording artist — it wasn’t her fault that 9/11 happened three weeks before the release of her self-titled debut album. Damon Dash, the hip-hop mogul, came along in 2003 with aspirations of making her an urban star: “If we can make Victoria hot, we can make anybody hot,” he claimed, but that was before anyone heard the results.
She didn’t need Damon Dash, though, any more than she needed any music.
Why did the Spice Girls abruptly halt their tour at the Air Canada Centre — a second round of two shows a month after triumphing over Baghdad in an online poll — when the chance of four out of five of them sustaining any kind of celebrity on these shores is so dicey? Rumours spread about Mel B and Melanie C being at odds, or was it Ginger clashing with Posh? Regardless, along with the obvious mezzanine merchandise — attesting to the unlikely timelessness of the Spice Girls logo — it felt like the generally plain twentysomething female crowd were subject to sales pitches geared to keeping each of the members in the limelight.
In the process, 32-year-old Emma Bunton belied her Baby Spice status by coming off like the oldest lass in the bunch with her Petula Clark-inspired act. Geri Halliwell, who sabotaged the Fab Five’s hopes when she walked away in 1998, offered her rendition of the gay national anthem, “It’s Raining Men” — Ginger as holistic yoga devotee seems less standoffish than her chiseled post-Spice persona, although the most interesting thing about her is that her baby daddy Sacha Gervasi has made a documentary about local metal heroes Anvil.
And, as for the two Mels: The Brown one did a karaoke version of Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” later thanking the audience for voting for her on Dancing With the Stars – even if you couldn’t technically do that here. Scary also has a side gig hawking Virgin Mobile products, and hosted an official afterparty Monday night at C Lounge. Melanie Chisholm, meanwhile, has enough ambition to continue a recording career, still looking for the right sound to suit her formidable pipes. Yet, rather than belting out power pop like her duet with Bryan Adams, her stage time was devoted to a hippy house assault of “I Turn To You”.
Mrs. Beckham needs no part of this. How’d that happen? Let’s go to the experts.
“Familiarity does not breed contempt with this crowd,” says Max Valiquette, president of marketing firm Youthography, and a bona fide Spice Girls expert. “Posh did the best job of keeping herself in the North American public eye, even though she’s almost entirely talent-free. When she did her bit on the catwalk on Monday night, it was to 'Supermodel' by RuPaul, which served its purpose in making her look like even more of a drag queen. But she has struck a chord.”
An attempt to give her a six-week reality show last summer on NBC — not unlike Tommy Lee Goes to College — was cut back to a one-hour special and garnered abysmal ratings. None of this had any bearing on the marquee value of her fairytale decade-long marriage to Los Angeles Galaxy footballer David Beckham.
Was it a case of Posh becoming the person that she really, really wanted to be?
“She is the one Spice Girl who suits the trajectory of what the fans who grew up with the group fantasized most about being,” says Valiquette. “So, even if they most personally identify with Mel C, it doesn’t mean they want to relate to her.”
Then there’s the matter of landing the right man. No other reproducing Spice Girl is currently married to the father of their children. Plus, 3-year-old Cruz Beckham stole the show with his breakdance during the lachrymose ballad “Mama,” where all the Spice offspring present appeared onstage in their soundproof earmuffs. The attention lavished on Cruz’s agility doubtless had something to do with dad.
“Posh’s fame is entirely due to David Beckham,” asserts Cathal Kelly, who covers Major League Soccer for the Toronto Star. “Before him, she was the least popular Spice Girl, no brains and no personality. Beckham ranks up there with Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan in the pantheon of sports personalities, and he’s certainly the prettiest. The two of them together turned into a supernova.”
Kelly has a good handle on who’s wearing the pants in the family, though. “She is the general in that relationship,” he says. “Far as I know, she targeted him from the outset, and got him. Now she’s driving the ship, given how she wouldn’t move to Madrid when he was playing there and basically forced him to move to L.A. He’s not as dim as he comes across, although he’s not particularly clever, either.”
And with Mr. Beckham having to sit out much of his first Galaxy season due to a sprained medial collateral ligament, it’s whetted appetites to see him kick around North America, including the May 31 game against Toronto FC at BMO Field.
“Face it, most of the people held up as sporting heroes are total trash,” says Kelly. “This couple has become to exception to all that. There was that one alleged affair with the gorgeous woman who was his translator in Spain, when she wasn’t around — but, even if that was the only time he strayed, he’s still shown superhuman restraint. Of course, Posh has done her part to capitalize on his celebrity, but I’m still left with the sense that they’re a pretty genuine couple.”
Years before the gaping online maw was being fed with celebrity gossip items around the clock, Spice Girls surveillance stories appeared in British print tabloids with a frequency to rival TMZ. Naturally, it contributed to a swelling gross for the Spice Girls — even if most of that excess merchandise landed in dollar store morgues after Geri bailed due to “exhaustion” and “differences” in 1998. Yet, the target demographic that bought the Spice and Spiceworld albums — about twice as many per capita in Canada compared to the United States — must’ve soaked up every song, given the familiarity that greeted even the tepid album tracks. Memories of pre-teen miming in front of a mirror generally have that effect.
“The old stuff does hold up for a certain era,” figures “Tarzan Dan” Freeman, the one-time host of The Hit List on YTV and millennial hit station Kiss 92, currently doing morning radio on Sun-FM in Kelowna, B.C. “You may not hear it on the radio at this point, but it’s probably in their iPods. But when I first heard the new Mel C single, not knowing who it was, I was wondering who it was doing a bad imitation of a Maroon 5 song, except they couldn’t sing as well as Adam Levine.
“You know, we have so much talent in this country, it’s hard to imagine something getting played on the radio from another country that isn’t up to par. I think people here are kind of done with them as far as the music side goes.”
The recent attempt to put the Spice sound back in a balladry bottle, “Headlines (Friendship Never Ends),” didn’t gain much traction by any standard that could be considered a hit. When even Celine Dion was making better au courant music than the Spice Girls — albeit to a similar indifference — maybe it was really over. This also explains why the concert tour incorporated a medley of old disco ditties.
Really, the Spice Girls had a bigger influence on the adult film industry — at least the box cover artwork — than anything to do with music. Better to bid aideu this way than emulate Duran Duran, who’ve spent 23 years and counting fecklessly trying to emulate their original resonance. Wonder if the 50-plus Madonna, released from her record company shackles to reignite her career in this new paradigm, will end up being eclipsed by Posh Spice, who knows better than to sing again.
“Posh has established herself as the icon,” says Tarzan Dan. “And she’s happy to be photographed eating — that way, no one will ask her if she actually does.”
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