| Victoria Beckham |
Victoria
Beckham in 2001
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Victoria Caroline Adams |
| Also known as |
Posh Spice |
| Born |
April 17 |
| Origin |
 Goff's
Oak, Hertfordshire,
England |
| Genre(s) |
Pop |
| Occupation(s) |
Singer, Fashion
designer |
| Label(s) |
Virgin (1996-2002), 19
Entertainment (2003-?), Telstar (2003-2004) |
Associated
acts |
Spice
Girls |
Victoria Beckham (née Adams),
(born April
17 in Goff's
Oak, Hertfordshire,
England)
is an English
singer, songwriter,
fashion
designer and television personality.
Beckham is part of the pop group Spice Girls, and was dubbed
'Posh Spice' as part of the pop group. Since the Spice Girls followed
separate careers, Beckham has released four UK Top 10 singles.
She is also known for being married to British football player David
Beckham. Her career and marriage to David Beckham have made her both
the fifty-second richest woman in Britain
and the six hundred and nineteenth richest person in Britain with
husband David, with an estimated joint wealth of £112 million.
|
Contents
- 1 Music
career
- 1.1 Spice
Girls
- 1.2 Virgin
Records
- 1.3 The
Telstar / 19 Management era
- 2 Fashion
career
- 3 Books
- 4 Television
- 5 Personal
life
- 6 Discography
- 7 See
also
- 8 References
- 9 External
links
|
Music career
Spice Girls
-
Victoria Beckham (then Adams) joined the all-girl band Spice
Girls, first called "Touch," in 1994, together with Geri
Halliwell, Emma Bunton, Melanie
Brown and Melanie Chisholm. The
group's first single, "Wannabe," went to number one in the
UK and the U.S., and would be followed by eight other hugely successful
number one singles from their albums "Spice"
and "Spiceworld." Each member of the
group received a nickname from the media: Victoria became "Posh
Spice,". The group would become one of the most successful acts of the 1990s, selling in
excess of fifty-five million records worldwide.
After the release of their third album, "Forever," which was much
less successful than their previous two albums, the Spice Girls stopped
recording, and Victoria would eventually take steps toward a solo
career.
In 2007, the Spice Girls confirmed that they have reformed and
are due to go on tour.
Just a year earlier 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 she and her former Spice colleagues were
enjoying their solo careers in various fields. She said: "We're
all still doing our own thing."
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.
Beckham signed a recording contract with 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". Beckham 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 Beckham's weaker sales could be the due to the media furor 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. "Not Such An Innocent Girl" did, nevertheless, sell
respectably in the UK and was a #1 hit in the Philippines.
Beckham'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 Beckham 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 Beckham's second pregnancy it was shelved, and Beckham
was dropped from the label Virgin Records.
The Telstar / 19 Management era
Single cover for "Let your Head Go/ This Groove"
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 Beckham allegedly shelved it after not being happy with the results.
Instead of pop, Beckham wanted to record tracks with a more RnB
and hip hop influence, and to accomplish
this she began working with urban producer Damon
Dash. There were some unsubstantiated rumours regarding both Dash and
Beckham at the time. These plans reportedly worried Telstar and Simon
Fuller, but they compromised with Beckham, 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 well at #3. This double A-side remains Victoria's
last single release to date.
As another compromise, Telstar allowed Beckham 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 Beckham).
"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 Beckham 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 Beckham 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 of the same name.
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 canceled.
To try and salvage her music career, Beckham again began work on
pop-styled tracks in 2004. It is known that she recorded a track she
had written with 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 Beckham's third pregnancy, this
song has never been heard, except for a remix by Armand
van Helden.
Fashion career
In 2000, Victoria Beckham made a guest appearance on the
catwalk for Maria Grachvogel.
Beckham has also appeared on the runway for her close friend Roberto
Cavalli and was for a period exclusively dressed by him for red-carpet
and social events.
In 2004, Beckham 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 ceased working with Rock and Republic in order
to launch her own Denim
label. The new line of Beckham'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. Around the same time Beckham
launched her new official website dybstyle.com
which follows her fashion work.
In June
2007 Beckham
was a judge at London's
annual Graduate Fashion Week
alongside Zandra Rhodes.
On June
5, 2007, she
won two British Glamour
Magazine Awards: one for "Woman of the Year"
and another for "Entrepreneur of the Year," which celebrated her
fashion achievements.
On June
14, 2007
Beckham launched her dVb denim collection in NYC at the high-end Saks
Fifth Avenue, along with unveiling her eyewear range in the US for the first time.
Books
Her autobiography, entitled Learning to Fly,
(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 and the total UK sales stand at more than
500,000 copies.
Beckham 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.
Television
Over the course of her career, Beckham has shot five official
reality documentaries.
The first of which, entitled Being Victoria Beckham,
focused on Beckham discussing her career as a solo artist, with the
release of her first album, also showing her at various photo shoots
and recording sessions. The second, The Real Beckhams,
focussed on the Beckhams' move to Madrid from London after David was signed to Real
Madrid. It also featured Beckham re-launching her solo career and
showed her mocking the tabloid stories she reads in the paper every
day. This particular special was released on DVD.
The third was called Full Length & Fabulous:
The Beckhams' World Cup Party, which followed Victoria and
David Beckham organising and making preparations to host a World Cup
Party at a marquee in the grounds of their mansion in Hertfordshire,
which aimed to raise money for their charity. The documentary also
filmed the event itself, where the menu was designed especially by
friend and chef Gordon Ramsay and the charity auction
was hosted by Graham Norton. The fourth being titled
Victoria's Secrets is rare and much sought after by
fans, little detail is known about it aside from it being aired only in
the U.K.
To document Victoria Beckham's preparations for her family's
move to America, she signed a deal with NBC for six episodes of a half-hour unscripted reality tv
series. The show is called Victoria
Beckham: Coming to America and aired on Monday July 16, 2007 in America and
Canada. The show was savaged by the American media and critics, where
amongst other reviews, The
New York Post described the show as "an orgy of
self-indulgence"
and also described Beckham as "vapid and condescending".
It became the third most watched programme in its time-slot and
received viewing figures of 4.9 million in America, beaten by a repeat
of Wife
Swap and two sitcoms.
Despite the originally planned six episodes, the show was cut to a one
hour special only.
The programme aired in Britain on July 17, 2007 on ITV with 3.5 million viewers tuning in.
The programme was produced by Simon Fuller who will be managing her
and the Spice Girls on their come back
tour, which will begin as early as November of 2007.
Despite a TV show in the works, Victoria has denied plans to embark
upon an LA movie career.
In July
2007, it was
announced that Beckham was shortly to begin filming an cameo appearance
playing herself in an episode of the second season of ABC's hit series Ugly Betty.
Personal life
Beckham's parents are Anthony William and Jacqueline Adams.
She has a younger sister, Louise, and a younger brother, Christian. She
attended Jason Theatre School in Hoddesdon. At 17, she started going to the
Laine Arts Theatre
College in Epsom, Surrey. Beckham later enjoyed
huge success as 'Posh Spice' in the girl band, The Spice Girls.
Victoria started dating footballer David Beckham in 1997, and the couple
were dubbed "Posh and Becks" by the media. Beckham proposed to Victoria
on 24
January 1998
in a restaurant in Cheshunt, England, and their first son, Brooklyn
Joseph, was born on 4 March 1999. The two were married at Luttrellstown
Castle, Ireland on 4
July 1999,
and the wedding attracted tremendous media coverage. Beckham's teammate
Gary
Neville was the best man, and the couple's son Brooklyn, then four
months old, was the ring bearer. The media were kept away from the
ceremony, as the Beckhams had an exclusive deal with OK!
Magazine, but newspapers were still able to obtain
photographs showing them sitting on golden thrones.
437 staff were employed for the wedding reception, which was estimated
to have cost £500,000.
The Beckhams' second son, Romeo James, was born on 1
September 2002;
a third son, Cruz David, followed on February 20, 2005 in Madrid, Spain.
The Beckhams are also known for their close friendship with Tom Cruise
and Katie
Holmes.
After many preparations, Victoria and David Beckham moved to Los
Angeles where David has been signed to play for the LA Galaxy
soccer team. On arrival in America on July 13, 2007, the couple were met by hundreds of paparazzi
and media representatives, causing a media frenzy. They are now
residing in a $22 million Beverly Hills mansion with 10 security
guards. To create publicity for their move to America, the couple were
photographed in their underwear for the fashion magazine, W.
In an interview for the magazine, Victoria Beckham said that David's
alleged affair with Rebecca Loos made their relationship
stronger.
Discography
Albums
- 2001 Victoria Beckham
#10 UK
Singles
| Year |
Single |
Album |
Chart positions |
Audio |
| UK |
IRE |
AUS |
SPA |
| 2000 |
"Out
of Your Mind" (Truesteppers & Dane
Bowers Featuring Victoria Beckham) |
"Truestepping" (Trusteppers
album) |
2 |
-- |
27 |
4 |
. (help·
See also
- Posh and Becks
- Supercouple
References
External links
Victoria Beckham
v • d • e
Album: Victoria Beckham
(2001)
Singles: "Out
of Your Mind" ·
"Not Such an Innocent Girl" ·
"A Mind of its Own" ·
"This
Groove" ·
"Let
Your Head Go"
Related articles: Victoria
Beckham: Coming to America ·
Spice
Girls ·
David
Beckham ·
VB
Rocks
Victoria
Beckham • Melanie Brown • Emma
Bunton • Melanie Chisholm • Geri
Halliwell
Albums: Spice
(1996) ·
Spiceworld (1997) ·
Forever
(2000) ·
Greatest Hits
(2007)
Singles: "Wannabe" ·
"Say You'll Be There" ·
"2
Become 1" ·
"Who Do You Think You Are" /
"Mama"
"Spice Up Your Life" ·
"Too Much" ·
"Stop" ·
"Viva
Forever" ·
"Goodbye" ·
"Holler"
/ "Let Love Lead the Way"
Tours: Spiceworld
Tour ·
The Return of the
Spice Girls
Related articles: Discography ·
Girl Power! Live in
Istanbul ·
Awards ·
Merchandise
Spiceworld movie ·
Girl
Power ·
Virgin Records ·
Simon
Fuller ·
Michelle Stephenson
|
