There's a doc about Victoria Beckham on the streamers (not as engaging as the David Beckham one) and that's my cue to dredge up this moment of genius.
The doc doesn't mention this track - which got to #2 in the charts - at all, but according to the life chronology that the doc follows, this would be from her flailing-around-a-bit period, after the Spice Girls split but before she launched her super-successful fashion and cosmetics business. A time when she was some combo of WAG and celeb-without-portfolio, drifting and dabbling, and mostly just existing to be photographed and to be seen at her husband's side.
But if this is Posh Spice flailing... well, all former pop stars should flail so fabulously!
Listen past the Auto-Tune gloss and it's one of the more avant hit singles in UK chart history.
Truesteppers - Jonny L and Andy Lysandrou - mash up the breaks 'n' bass and the stinging techsteppy stabs, but embed all that Nuummy Nuum stuff in a poptastic setting of nu-R&B meets 2step.
There's a tuffer 12-inch mix for the clubs.
"This tune's gonna punish you..."
A remix by credible UKG artists 10degrees below versus X-Men - not nearly as exciting!
Oh I didn't realise she had another intersection with UK Garage
Todd-ified
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What is funny about "Out of Your Mind" to me is that Andy Lysandrou was, only 7 or 8 years earlier, doing things like this track "Pain" under the name Kid Andy, for his hardcore label Boogie Beat Records, which turns around a huge chunk of "Careless Whispers". I remember ads for this track on the pirates, which was surprising because you really had a record advertised on a pirate and if you did, it would be compiliation. They must have expected big things of it.
So actually not really "chav-ant garde" although the hypergloss aesthetic of the clothes and the video is totally lumpen-futurist.
The whole look that Posh and Dane Bowers are rocking is very much a peek ahead to Love Island aesthetics. Which as has been established is entwined with the Nuum to a surprising degree.
*Suddenly struck me that maybe Lysandrou chose the George Michael sample not just because it's so chuneful and well-known but because George was of Greek ancestry - he would have been the most successful Greek-British singer ever, I should think, so perhaps a point of pride.
There was a cluster of Greek Cypriot involvement in nuum, UK clubscene, pirate radio - Nick Power, and influential instigator brother George Power (deejay, cofounder of Kiss FM etc etc).
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I'm reminded of ex-New Kid on the Block Jordan Knight's 1999 hit "Give it to You" - almost shocking in its Timbaland meets proto-dubstep rhythmic inventiveness.
https://youtu.be/ijXcYLV1aNg?si=NWRpPKNXg8Ue18rr
See also Simply Red's "Fairground" (as someone from the Maker remarked at the time "squint your ears and its almost jungle").
As easily the most limited vocalist in the Spice Girls, Posh's turn away from music proved to be prudent - she's far and away the most famous and successful of the ex-Spices (Sporty's current a judge on the Aussie version of X Factor).
Fairground is mildly heartbreaking: in the verses I always think “this is incredible: what is it?” And then the boring Simply Red chorus kicks in, and the effect is ruined.
I didn’t know that about Mel C. If you ever saw them perform live, it was clear that she was by far the most naturally talented singer in the group. But as you say that is not particularly relevant to having a successful career.
I love Out Of Your Mind: it’s a fantastic tune. I liked it so much I bought the album, although IIRC I paid only £2 for the CD at HMV.
I still have it somewhere. But it is very odd, because the version I had seems to have disappeared from memory. When I go on Google Images, Discogs, etc, there is no sign of the cover I remember, which was white with True Steppers written in electric blue.
Give it another five years and I’ll be able to dig it out as a lost classic.
Is it any good? The later Truesteppers singles aren't as exciting.
I find it interesting that Jonny L just a year or so before had been doing very credible neurofunk style drum and bass with "Piper" and "Moving Thru Air" (a great tune). Two albums of that stuff, and then on a dime, he turns and does something totally pop (but still drawing on the scientific edge of the techstep era production).
He was quite.... nimble, would be the nicer, more charitable way of putting it. In between "Hurt You So" and the later drum and bassy stuff, he did something that was very not-hardcore - not quite trance, but perhaps similar to a group like Fluke. "Hurt You So" probably got close to being a hit, but then the bubble burst and darkcore ensued.
But all those guys knew how to move with the times. Grant Nelson had fingers in multiple style-pies at the same time - garage, hardcore, happy hardcore.
It's OK. I like the other Dane Bowers tune, Buggin'. And Club for Clowns has a fun "you're not on the list, you're not going in" call-back. But nothing else really stands out for me. Very evocative of a time and a place, though.
This tune was involved in a race for no.1 with Spiller's Groovejet - The real race was between Posh Spice and Posh Bird, Sophie Ellis-Bextor with the future queen of kitchen disco claiming triumph.
I haven't heard Out Of Your Mind in years. The spoken word part at the end caused some confusion for those of us familiar with Templeogue - a middle class suburb of Dublin. What did Mrs. Beckham mean by
" Templeogue, you're out of your mind "?? (She's actually saying Ten Below, you're out of your mind).
Without doubt one of the most exciting/interesting chart songs ever - I love how it’s basically a potted history of the nuum, created by someone deeply embedded in that culture, sitting right at the top of the charts with a Spice Girl as the vocalist! Rave stabs, jungle breaks, techstep bass, 2 step drums...and yet it doesn’t sound too far away from Destiny’s Child etc with the rnb flourishes. Never fails to thrill and astound me.
Sample spotting saddo: The bleepy riff that comes in at about 1:50 was sampled from Cru-L-T ‘Cloudy Surface’, a hardcore track on Kniteforce by Luna C. Who also reached no.2 on the UK chart a few years earlier with Sesame’s Treet!
That's a great spot.
Yeah a potted history of nuum, exactly.
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