Felix NEill

I’m guessing that some of you might take some convincing about the joys of this one and that I might have a bit of a sales job to do. But the nights are drawing in, the children are asleep and I’m up for the challenge. Join me if you will...

So: Melanie Jayne Chisholm. Born January 1974. Nine years younger than me. Born in Whiston, Merseyside. One hundred and six miles away from where I was born. Sporty Spice. The one who could really sing. Spice Girls 1994 - 1998. Solo career 1998 – present. Spice Girls reunion tour in 2007. Became a Mum earlier this year. New album promised next year. Found an extended welcome in continental Europe after we did our usual “build ‘em up, knock ‘em down” routine in the UK.

Melanie Jayne Chisholm. Liverpool fan. Sporty spice. The one with the voice. The backflips, tracksuits and pony tails. The least attractive one. Lesbian rumours. Clinical depression. Eating disorders. The one who could really sing.

I’ve got nothing but happy memories of the initial Spice Girls period. It was a crazy time wasn’t it? I was utterly beguiled when I first saw 'em bouncing around in the "Wannabe" video. PROPER pop music. Full of vitality, youth, fun and sex. Hormones and laughter. I never bought any of their music, or saw them live, or even watched the film, even though Richard E. Grant was in it, but I was really, really glad that they were around. Good times. Happy days.

I look back to that period and it feels like the first half of the Nineties might have been my actual halcyon days. I sometimes think that the Noughties have all just been a horrible dream. And I want the world to wake up now. War. Terrorism. Another war. Security paranoia. Economical crisis. Hard times and stress. The rich getting richer. Jobs for the boys. Clinical depression. Evil people wielding great power. Abuse of power. Celebrity. Opium for the masses. Celebrity meltdown. Big Brother is watching you, watching us, watching you. Eating disorders. Build ‘em up, knock ‘em down. In your face. Up your skirt. Deeper. Further down. Darker. Fade to black.

Where can we turn? What can we do? Well, it’s the artists, isn’t it? We turn to art (or God, I suppose, but I can’t offer you anything in the way of hope or enlightenment in that direction. I'm firmly in the Dawkins camp). We look to our culture to provide enlightenment. To place things in context. We turn to our artists to express the pain. To articulate the feelings which we all feel. To make sense of the chaos in which we find ourselves. To find some common ground, some connection, some humanity in the tide of negativity. Some vulnerability among the arrogance. Some love among the indifference. Some understanding.

Melanie Jayne Chisholm. Born January 1974. Manufactured pop star. Celebrity. Clinical depression. She’s been there, done that. She’s been there, bought the T shirt. The T Shirt had her name on. It was her face on the soft drinks, on the washing powder, on the supermarket hoardings, on the products in our kitchen cupboards. It was her voice on the radio. She was the one who could really sing. Backflips, tracksuits, pony tails.

I have an argument which runs along the lines that ALL art is valid. Any attempt at expression, any attempt to document the human condition in any way, shape or form is of equal value. Criticism is nothing more than a filter. There is a beauty in any art. Everything has some value. A connection will be made somewhere, with someone, at some time now or in the future. It matters not if a single person finds it relevant and powerful, or it connects with the masses. Mainstream or cult success. Posthumous reappraisal. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is getting it down. Leaving a mark. Self expression is fulfillment. “Live your life without regret/Don’t be someone that they forget.”

“Northern Star” was Melanie Jayne Chisholm’s first solo album following the Spice Girls disintegration. It was 1999. The Spice Girls had ended as these things do. Cultural phenomenon. The world loved them. Cynical marketing. Milk the cash cow. Build ‘em up, knock ‘em down. The end. Solo career beckons. The dumper. Popular on the Continent. Big in Japan. Reunion. Disappointment.

“Northern Star” is one of the most affecting pop songs I have ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of pop songs. It’s obviously autobiographical. And in context of her career, her life, it’s one of the finest songs ever written. This isn’t hyperbole, I’m totally serious. It’s all in there: the career, the rise, the fall, the pain, the doubt, leaving your mark, making human connections. It is pop music in excelsis. It is low culture attaining the status of high art. It is one of the purest things that has ever been made. It moves me a way that is difficult to articulate. It’s beautifully written, produced, arranged, recorded and sung. It’s damn near perfect. No wait, it IS perfect. How about that? It is an erudite expression of the power of human emotion. It is a statement about defiance in the face of adversity set to a towering musical accompaniment. It is, quite simply, everything I love about music.

In Private Lives, Noel Coward wrote, “[It is] Extraordinary how potent cheap music is”, and Heaven help me, this is potent stuff. I have never heard, nor do I ever want to hear, the whole of the “Northern Star” album. Down that road there can only be disappointment for me. Nothing else can be this good. This wonderful. This truly, truly great.

To conclude, I should probably list a few of the myriad things which make this song so celestial. A little guide for the unconvinced, perhaps? An I-Spy book for the reluctant? Well, apart from the lyric and the vocal performance, there’s the string arrangement. Romantic and powerful, like being ravished by a siren. There are the multi-tracked harmony vocals, so beautifully arranged. There is the final chorus section which kicks in after the instrumental middle section, so uplifting, it feels like a key change, but it isn't. There’s a little fizzing synth line which appears in the coda which goes up the scale and then back down again, which makes the hairs on my neck rise. There is perfection. There is beauty. There is Melanie Jayne Chisholm.

I love you for this song, Melanie Jayne Chisholm. Born in 1974. Nine years after me. 106 miles away from me. You have made my heart burst with joy and you have made me cry. Within the space of 4 minutes and eleven seconds, time and again and again and again, in public and in private. You have made your mark. You have gotten it down. You have made a connection.

320 Kbps.

Link Expired