The artist formerly known as Ginger returns, with further camp silliness…

Lift Me Up, by Geri Halliwell (her 2^nd of four solo #1s)

1 week, from 7^th – 14^th November 1999

Maybe you think I’m overstating just how camp solo Geri could be. If so, then I would nod you in the direction of the birdsong and Disney princess tinkles that open ‘Lift Me Up’. You half expect her to burst into a chorus of ‘Bibbity Bobbity Boo’. But no, we soon settle into a perky pop-ballad, with a suitably uplifting chorus. Lift me up, When the lights are fading… I will be your angel for life…

It’s hard to overstate just how of its time, just how drenched in little late-nineties flourishes this song is. The drumbeat, the guitar-lite backing, the warm synthy organ line, and the key change. We are truly entering the age of the key change, when pop music was so cheesy, so unashamedly bubblegum, so – yes – camp, that a pop song with any modicum of ambition needed one.

I might suggest, however, that a slower number such as this shows off Geri’s vocal limitations. The lower-key verses certainly back this idea up. I will say, though, that she acquits herself well in the choruses, sensibly aided by some backing singers, which she commits to without letting things get too cloying. And I notice a theme between this – a song in which the singer is asking a lover, or friend, to help keep her upbeat and positive – and the previous #1, Five’s ‘Keep on Movin’.

The video is also… I’ll try and not use the c-word… Pretty theatrical. Geri is driving alone along a dusty road when she comes across some aliens whose spaceship has broken down. She befriends them and they have a jolly day together, trying on her underwear and watching the ‘Mi Chico Latino’ music video… Actually, no. If there were a better word then I’d use it, but I don’t think there is. It’s just plain camp.

‘Lift Me Up’ was Geri’s third single and her second chart-topper, making her the most successful solo Spice (a title that she has never relinquished and that will, we can assume, now be hers for eternity). But it was released on the same day as Emma Bunton’s ‘What I Am’, a collaboration with electronic duo Tin Tin Out – a far cooler piece of music. A publicity battle ensued, which Geri was critical of at the time. In the end she won, fairly comfortably, by 140,000 copies to Emma’s 110,000. Baby would have to wait a couple more years to finally get a solo #1.