Absolute Marketing
Pop Rock, 2005

Poor Melanie C. The former Sporty Spice’s latest CD Beautiful Intentions suffers from the same problem that plagues her previous efforts: I never get any sense of cohesiveness from her body of work. This doesn’t go well with her constant proclamations that she has some artistic integrity and she knows what is true to her heart, or some rot like that, because it seems like her true vision is to bore me to sleep.

With Greg Haver, the man responsible for some of Manic Street Preachers’s biggest hits, Melanie C comes up with a CD of radio-friendly rock tracks. However, while things get off on a great start with the fabulous title track and the next rocky song Next Best Superstar, things come to a standstill when the following tracks are neither here nor there, listenable but never actually delivering some kick that will make them stick to my head. Maybe it’s because these songs need someone with charisma and striking personality to breathe life to them and Melanie C isn’t that person. Maybe it’s just that most of these songs are boring to the point of being nondescript.

Either way, Melanie C may have Beautiful Intentions and maybe even dreams of attaining success in music while being true to herself, whatever that means, but at the end of the day, she’s as dull as dishwater. She may want to be a Manic Street Preacher, but take away the electric guitar and she’s Gary Barlow – vocally talented, perhaps, but too dull to stand out as a solo artist.