Out of all the Spice Girls, Melanie Chisholm has enjoyed the most second acts.<\/p>\n
The pop star the world fell in love with as Sporty Spice, has also been Indie Spice, Theatre Spice, DJ Spice, The Voice Spice, and now Club Spice with her ninth studio record Sweat.<\/p>\n
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, a track midway through her new dance pop record released this week, encapsulates her fearlessness in the face of doubters.<\/p>\n
Eight years after launching a successful career behind the decks in an era when every celebrity wanted to be a DJ, Mel C\u2019s latest record confirms her credentials \u2013 alongside Madonna, Kylie and Robyn \u2013 as a bona fide dance diva.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think \u2018what could possibly go wrong?\u2019 has been like a subconscious mantra from day dot, because think about it with Spice Girls, right? We were auditioned, the initial management that put us together, we (then) left,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no money, we had no experience, we had no contacts. What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we had belief and we had ambition and we had determination and everything we wanted, we achieved, which is incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I learned really early on with the girls, and thanks to the girls, to be courageous. What\u2019s the expression? Feel the fear and do it anyway, f**k it!\u201d<\/p>\n
The album charts the end of a relationship and the beginning of her love story with Australian model and screen writer Chris Dingwall, who she met via celebrity dating app Raya in late 2023.<\/p>\n
The break-up songs are both funny and brutal, and Chisholm says \u201cabsolutely\u201d when asked if someone is going to recognise themselves in the song Good For Nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnger is my energy, my emotion this time around; it brings out an untapped side of me sometimes. I\u2019m not a confrontational person, so it\u2019s good to get those feelings out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe creation of this album is at the cross-section of the end of a relationship, the unentanglement of that situation, which sadly often gets a little bit nasty, and meeting somebody new, falling in love, that relationship evolving. It\u2019s the whole ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sound of Sweat is rooted in the spirit Chisholm\u2019s rave child days. She was 17 and on her first parent-free holiday in Spain\u2019s Costa Brava with three girlfriends, who called themselves the \u201cF**king Yeah Four\u201d.<\/p>\n
The FYF continued their immersion in British club culture through the early 90s until the advent of the Spice Girls.<\/p>\n
That first musical love was rekindled when she launched her solo career in 1999 with her debut record Northern Star.<\/p>\n
While critics nicknamed her Indie Spice for the record\u2019s Britpop leanings, one of the record\u2019s biggest hits was the Hex Hector remix of I Turn To You, recasting her as Ibiza Spice. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just this amazing kind of awakening; I think for my generation, it was our Woodstock,\u201d Chisholm said of her early experiences of rave culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously because of the drug culture around the scene, people had moved away from drinking and in the UK, like the Aussies, drinking was a big part of our culture, which always brought a lot of violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at raves, so many people were high and loved up on different things, and there was no fighting, just a real feeling of togetherness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I hadn\u2019t had those experiences as a young person, I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to be a DJ and that has brought so much joy to my life. And informed this record so much as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sweat album cover image \u2013 Mel C looking toned and strong in a leotard \u2013 immediately conjures the memory of an iconic music video of an Aussie pop icon.<\/p>\n
She said Olivia Newton-John\u2019s Physical was \u201cabsolutely one of the inspirations\u201d driving the record, particularly when it came to unleashing her own cheeky humour in her lyrics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat Physical video was totally in my mind. Making this record, injecting some humour into the songs was something I\u2019ve wanted to do for ages but never quite knew how to weave it into the music without it being naff, you know?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it just came really naturally on this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she has enjoyed two successful DJ tours in Australia, Mel C has never undertaken a national tour here as a pop artist.<\/p>\n
That changes in November. And you can count on Spice Girls songs making it onto the setlist for the Aussie shows.<\/p>\n
Chisholm laughs when asked if there\u2019s a difference between the backstage riders for her DJ tours versus her pop tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not too different. Probably the honey and the ginger and the lemon on the pop one when I\u2019m singing, and maybe a bit more booze on the DJ rider, but yeah, I try to keep it simple, I don\u2019t like having too much shit in my dressing room,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey always make such a big display with it all and I need the space for hair and makeup!\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweat is out now. For all November tour dates and tickets, visit livenation.com.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Out of all the Spice Girls, Melanie Chisholm has enjoyed the most second acts. The pop star the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[310547,64,63,689,134510,310549,310556,310562,310561,310544,310551,310557,310555,1199,310554,310548,112847,310545,310563,134,2057,310558,15133,232930,2105,310559,259085,48549,24195,2082,41239,647,136,310552,310546,677,117726,280925,310564,310550,3595,2020,41240,310553,310560,660,68830],"class_list":["post-641471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-alexander-koerner","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-model","tag-australian-partner","tag-backstage-riders","tag-break-up-journey","tag-break-up-songs","tag-british-club","tag-brutal-split","tag-charts-break-up","tag-chris-dingwall","tag-christian-horner","tag-dance-album","tag-dance-diva","tag-day-dot","tag-debut-record","tag-drug-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-europe","tag-fide-dance-diva","tag-garrett","tag-geri-halliwell","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-iconic-music-video","tag-kathy-mccabe","tag-love-story","tag-madonna","tag-mark-thompson","tag-mel-c","tag-melbourne","tag-music","tag-music-videomelanie","tag-musical-love","tag-oceania","tag-olivia-newton-john","tag-pop-icon","tag-real-feeling","tag-screen-writer","tag-southern-europe","tag-spain","tag-spice-girls","tag-subconscious-mantra","tag-theatre-spice","tag-victoria","tag-young-person"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}