Here, let's buck a trend. Emma Bunton, she of being the quieter, presumably second least talented Spice Girl (after Footballwife Spice) has just released her debut solo single, 'What Took You So Long', and it pisses all over everything her bandmates have done. Yes, I include Geri and BOTH the Mels in that.

Now, the cynical, 'if they don't play their own instruments and write about pain I don't wanna know' types out there will say "Huh, that's not exactly difficult... bet it's still shit." But, and this pains me greatly to say, no. Far from it.

With the twangy opening guitar line, it sounds like Chris Isaacs making a concerted effort to go pop. And it doesn't suddenly become shit after that either... nice vocals, nice guitars, toe-tapping singalong stuff indeed.

I'm not going to interpret the lyrics, she probably wrote them with more than just a little help from her team of writers, but it's a very catchy, very upbeat song that comes as a complete bolt from the blue. If the rest of the album is as good as this, I will buy it and place it proudly amongst my intense, brooding guitar rock. Maybe. It at least deserved to get to Number 1.