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Victoria Caroline Beckham (née Adams)
(April 17, 1974) is a singer and fashion designer best
known as a former member of the Spice Girls. While with
the Spice Girls, she was known as 'Posh Spice.' In 1997,
Adams started dating footballer David Beckham of the
famous team Manchester United, and their relationship
attracted a great deal of media interest. The couple
married at Luttrellstown Castle, Ireland on 4 July 1999.
Beckham's teammate Gary Neville was the best man and the
couple's son Brooklyn, then four months old, was the
ring bearer.
The Beckhams, who came to be known almost universally as
"Posh and Becks", have three sons: Brooklyn
Joseph Beckham (born 1999), Romeo James Beckham (born
2002), and Cruz David Beckham (born 2005).
Virgin Records: In August 2000, Victoria released
her first solo single: Out Of Your Mind, a collaboration
with the Garage act the Truesteppers and Dane Bowers.
The week of release coincided with the release of
Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) by Spiller ft. Sophie
Ellis-Bextor, resulting in a chart battle dubbed 'Posh
vs. Posher' by the tabloids. Following a huge publicity
campaign, Out Of Your Mind was outsold by 20,000 copies
and debuted at number two with first week sales of
180,584 copies.
Victoria signed a recording contract by her group label
Virgin Records. Her true debut single as a solo artist,
Not Such An Innocent Girl, was released in September
2001. Again, she faced competition in another hugely
hyped chart battle, this time with Kylie Minogue's
single Can't Get You Out Of My Head. Victoria was
unlikely to beat Kylie, but she gave the project huge
promotion, and the record had an expensive and
futuristic video. In the week of release, the tabloid
newspaper The Sun ran a daily progress chart covering
the chart battle, but they gave up half way through the
week when it was clear the battle was a one horse race.
A potential factor attributable to
Victoria's weaker sales could be the due to the media
furore she created after wearing a fake lip ring during
a live performance in Birmingham, an event that also saw
her getting booed and pelted with fruit by a hostile
public. She was widely criticised by many groups,
including the British Dental Association, for setting a
bad example that her younger fans may wish to emulate.
It has since been argued that this 'stunt' and the
ensuing media backlash was the beginning of the end of
Victoria's music career.
Victoria's eponymously titled debut album reached number
10 in the UK album chart. The album featured the much
talked about Every Part Of Me, a song co-written by
Victoria and dedicated to her son, Brooklyn, who
features at the start, Brooklyn's 'part' allegedly being
an off-chance recording which took place during a
recording session break.
The second and final single to be released from the
album was A Mind Of Its Own The single reached number 6
in the UK and sold 56,500 copies. Some speculate that
due to its not hitting the Top 3, rumours started
spreading that Beckham was soon to be dropped by her
label. These were refuted at the time.
A third single, I Wish, was promoted but never
materialised. The single version was a remix featuring
Robbie Craig, and was performed on TV on Friday Night's
All Wright. Many hoped this single would revitalise the
album's fortunes, but following the announcement of
Victoria's second pregnancy it was shelved, and Victoria
parted ways with Virgin Records.
The Telstar / 19 Management era: Telstar Records
signed Victoria in 2002 in a deal made with Simon
Fuller's 19 Management. She spent much of 2002 recording
a 'pop-influenced' album, but Victoria herself shelved
it after not being happy with the results. Instead of
pop, Victoria wanted to record tracks with a more RnB
and hip hop influence, and to accomplish this she began
working with urban producer Damon Dash. These plans
reportedly worried Telstar and Simon Fuller, but they
compromised with Victoria, allowing her to release a
Dash produced track (This Groove) along-side one of her
earlier pop tracks (Let Your Head Go) from the shelved
album.
The resulting double A-side single Let Your Head Go /
This Groove was released in the UK in late December
2003, following heavy promotion and many TV appearances
across the Christmas period. The single charted at #3,
although critics were fast to point out this was not
much of an accomplishment due to singles receiving their
lowest sales of the year the week after Christmas. This
double A-side remains Victoria's last single release to
date.
As another compromise, Telstar allowed Victoria to
release some of her urban tracks on The Real Beckhams
DVD. This 2003 documentary was released in January 2004,
and bonus material included the videos for Let Your Head
Go and This Groove, as well as four previously
unreleased tracks: Resentment, That Dude, Me And You
This Time and Valentine (none of the songs had a writing
credit from Victoria). Resentment has since been covered
by Beyoncé Knowles and released on her solo album
'B'Day' (2006).
Outside of the UK, Damon Dash had plans for Victoria in
the United States, including a potential release of Let
Your Head Go / This Groove under the name of "Posh
Spice Victoria Beckham". The release was proposed
for sometime between March to May 2004, but never
occurred. A Dash produced track It's That Simple
featuring M.O.P. was promoed to vinyl, and received a
premiere on BBC urban music radio station 1Xtra. This
only generated further criticism, with the feeling being
that Victoria was a far from convincing urban act.
Around this time, a 90 second snippet of a track called
Come Together was released to the media, which was
notable for sampling the Beatles' song Come Together.
With the UK media describing her music career a failure,
and combined with a rumored fall out between Dash and
Fuller, remaining plans for Victoria's music career were
cancelled. To try and salvage her music career, Victoria
again began work on pop-styled tracks in 2004. It is
known that she recorded a track written for her by Cathy
Dennis entitled My Love Is For Real (not to be confused
with the Paula Abdul song of the same name). With the
collapse of Telstar Records, the pressure to stay with
her family caused by the Rebecca Loos scandal, and the
announcement of Victoria's third pregnancy, this song
has never been heard, except for a remix by Armand van
Helden.
Unreleased music: A previously unknown track,
Back To Life, was put online in 2005. Although
uncertain, it is believed this track dates from early
recording sessions for the Victoria Beckham album. In
spring 2006, an auction for a CD of 25 unreleased songs
from the Telstar / 19 Management era appeared on eBay.
It eventually sold for £390. On 5 September 2006,
eleven of Victoria's unreleased songs from the shelved
Telstar pop-style album leaked online in various music
and fan forums.
Future Plans: On February 26, 2006, Victoria
Beckham stated in an interview with the Sunday Mirror:
"I'm never going to sing again, unless it was a
chance to do something with the Spice Girls. I don't
really miss the shows we did together. I miss the girls
more. I see Geri a lot — I love her, she's amazing. I
speak to the others from time to time. I love them too
and miss them."
Beckham also declared that, for the moment, she and her
former Spice colleagues are enjoying their solo careers
in various fields. She says: "We're all still doing
our own thing. But that's the great thing about the
position we're in now — when we decide we want to do
more stuff, we can. There's no pressure and, at the end
of the day, our fans have been so supportive — and so
loyal — that hopefully, when we do come back they'll
still be there". However, it has been rumoured that
in late 2006, Beckham hinted that she may return to
singing one day, but was unspecific.
"She's focusing on her fashion activity at the
moment and should she wish to do music at a later date
then obviously that's something we can consider. She has
a flexible career with which she can do whatever she
wants to," her spokeswoman said.
Fashion career: In 2000 Victoria Beckham made a
guest appearance on the catwalk for Maria Grachvogel. In
2004 Victoria designed a fashion line for Rock and
Republic called 'VB Rocks,' consisting mainly of jeans
for the high end of the market (retailing at
approximately $300 in the U.S.). She has also worked on
a range of women's clothes including shirts and skirts.
The clothing features a logo of a crown with the letters
"VB". In September 2006, Beckham stopped
working with Rock and Republic to launch her own jeans
label. The new line of Victoria's jeans collection is
called DVB Style.
Beckham was briefly the face of Rocawear, and has for or
a number of years produced a range of handbags and
jewellery in association with the Japanese store
Samantha Thavasa. In July 2006, Victoria Beckham
released a line of sunglasses (which she had been seen
wearing at the World Cup games). In September 2006
'Intimately Beckham', a his and her fragrance line in
association with Coty the world's largest fragrance
house was launched.
On February 28, 2007 Victoria announced that she is
working on a reality show that will document her move to
Los Angeles from London. She signed a deal with NBC for
six episodes of a half-hour unscripted reality tv
series. The series, which may air as early as this
summer, will be produced by Simon Fuller.
Books: Her autobiography, entitled Learning to
Fly,[16] (the title was taken from a line in a song from
the musical Fame, which Victoria adored as a child). The
book was the 3rd best selling non-fiction title of 2001
(total UK sales stand at more than 500,000 copies), and
has been translated into several languages.
Victoria is widely believed to have told a Spanish
journalist in 2005 that "I've never read a book in
my life". Although often used to criticise and
ridicule Victoria, this 'quote' was actually a
mistranslation from the original Spanish in which the
interview was printed - she actually stated she never
had time to finish reading a book because she was always
running around after her children.
Her second book, a fashion book titled That Extra Half
an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything In Between, was
published on October 30, 2006. It was co-written by
Hadley Freeman, deputy fashion editor of the Guardian
and a contributing editor of Vogue and includes
photography by Mario Testino, Annie Leibovitz and Steven
Meisel. On the Sunday Times Book Charts, the book stood
at # 2. |
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