EMMA BUNTON

A Girl Like Me [Virgin]

The Milky Bar kid is strong and tough, and only the best is good enough, and Emma Bunton is his bird. And this is her album. Are you still reading? I dunno what I’m supposed to do with this. Emma Bunton, while probably a very nice girl (who’s undoubted success in the world of sugar and spice hasn’t, by all accounts, turned her into a harridan of Mariah-esque proportions), is to music what Henry Rollins is to the craft of embroidery.

On A Girl Like Me Emma presents a dozen saccharine pop treats, each one full of E numbers but totally devoid of anything resembling ecstacy; another album to chuck aboard the pop blandwagon. Emma borrows Latin frills from Ricky (dated even when Geri nicked ‘em last year) and covers Blue Pearl’s ‘Naked In The Rain’, while last year’s Tin Tin Out collaboration ‘What I Am’ is sellotaped onto the end for good (?) measure. And do me a favour Emma, if you’re gonna title a song ‘We’re Not Gonna Sleep Tonight’, please make it about shagging and not about a gang of Bridget Jones clones out on the town. In Romford.

Actually, have any of you seen the video for ‘What Took You So Long’? If you (carefully and gently) placed a biro between the cheeks of her bottom she could sign autographs with it. Now that’s talent.

Stephen Robinson