Version of Me

Version of Me is the seventh studio album by English singer Melanie C. It was released on 21 October 2016 by Red Girl Records to highly positive reviews.

On 12 November 2016, Dear Life was played for the first time as a single on Graham Norton's BBC Radio 2 show.

[9] [10] Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic found that the songs on the album "have strong contours: not necessarily hookier melodies, but arrangements that emphasize movement instead of shimmer.

Version of Me still tends to collapse into style, grooving on feel instead of song, but Melanie C actually winds up giving the album a bit of a kick.

No matter how anodyne and elegant her electronic surrounds are, she punctures their sheen with her earthiness, and that gives Version of Me an unexpectedly nervy heart.

"[1] Martin Townsend from The Daily Express called the album "a very deliberate exercise in modern RR&B flavoured pop.

This feels, at times, like a mistake: "Numb," in particular, is laden with so much sonic trickery it sounds like builders are working in the studio [but] when the producers calm down and her huskily powerful but always slightly vulnerable voice is allowed to soar, as on the closing quartet of tracks, the results are superb.

Rather than allowing her career to grow stale after seventeen years as a solo artist, Melanie C takes a stab at something a little different with Version of Me and easily pulls it off.