Let Your Head Go

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"Let Your Head Go"
LetYourHeadGoCover.jpg
Single by Victoria Beckham
from the album The 'Réal' Beckhams
A-side"This Groove"
Released29 December 2003
Recorded2002–2003
Genre
Length3:41
LabelTelstar
Songwriter(s)
  • Klas Baggstrom
  • Liz Winstanley
  • Roger Olsson
Producer(s)
  • Klas Baggstrom
  • Liz Winstanley
  • Roger Olsson
  • Mike Gray
  • Jon Pearn
Victoria Beckham singles chronology
"A Mind of Its Own"
(2002) 		"This Groove" / "Let Your Head Go"
(2003)
Music video
"Let Your Head Go" on YouTube

"Let Your Head Go" is a song recorded by British singer, songwriter and fashion designer Victoria Beckham, intended for her unreleased second studio album. It was released as a double A-side with "This Groove" on 29 December 2003 by Telstar Records. In 2004, it was included on the video album The 'Réal' Beckhams, after her record company went bankrupt before it surfaced.

"Let Your Head Go" entered the UK Singles Chart at number three, the highest new entry for the week, and also tied with Emma Bunton's "Downtown" as the highest chart position for a solo Spice Girl since Geri Halliwell's "It's Raining Men" topped the chart in 2001. It became the 88th best selling UK single of 2004.

Background[]

In 2002, Beckham signed a contract with Telstar Records and 19 Management[1] worth £1.5 million. Beckham then began recording a pop-influenced album, Open Your Eyes, which yielded the single "Let Your Head Go", but she allegedly chose not to release it after being disappointed with the results.[2][3] Instead of pop and R&B, Beckham wanted a more urban sound and worked with urban producer Damon Dash to work on the hip hop-influenced R&B album Come Together.[1][4] A Dash-produced track, "It's That Simple" featuring M.O.P., premiered on radio stations in July 2003,[4] generating mixed reviews.[4] Beckham's first single with Telstar, "This Groove"/"Let Your Head Go",[4] was released in the UK on 29 December 2003, following heavy promotion and many TV appearances across the Christmas period.[4] This double A-side paired "Let Your Head Go" from Beckham's earlier pop and R&B-inspired work with "This Groove", one of her hip hop and R&B songs, and remains Beckham's last single release to date. Outside of the UK, Damon Dash had plans for Beckham in the US, including a potential release of "This Groove / Let Your Head Go" under the name of "Posh Spice Victoria Beckham". The release was proposed for sometime between March to May 2004, but never eventuated.[5]

With the UK media describing her solo music career a failure, combined with a rumoured fall-out between Dash and Fuller, her hip hop album, Come Together, was not released.[6] She was dismissed from Telstar when the company became bankrupt, and gave up music to focus on her fashion career.[7]

Composition[]

"Let Your Head Go" is a dance-pop and electro-R&B song.[8][9] The song's lyrics speak about letting oneself go in the form of dancing to music, or to feel free with music (to "let your head go" is to feel free).

Critical reception[]

Bradley Stern from MuuMuse called the track a "criminally underrated dance-pop tune".[8] Hollywood.com commented that "swansong "Let Your Head Go" restored a bit of dignity".[10]

Chart performance[]

Released on 29 December 2003, the single entered the UK Singles Chart at and peaked at number 3, charting for 8 weeks, despite weeks of intense publicity prior to its release. This was the highest new entry for the week. It became the UK's eighty-eighth best-selling single of 2004 with sales of 68,656 copies.[11] Like "Out of Your Mind", once again this track was released in the same week as a Sophie Ellis-Bextor track, the track this time being "I Won't Change You" from the aforementioned singer, which reached number 9.[12]

Music video[]

A music video was released in promotion of the song. The video features Beckham first tearing the clothes in her dressing room and appearing to go crazy over a wire hanger, a reference to Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. Beckham is then featured in two dream sequences, once as fragile in the wake of this "breakdown" and is being photographed heavily by paparazzi as she is escorted by psychologists, and once again in the same outfit being ignored by paparazzi, signaling that she is no longer relevant. She wakes from the nightmare and is seen attempting to grab from a box a cross with the letters OBE in neon lights. She is then seen having hair and makeup done and posing in the mirror (including her famous point gesture). She is seen on a throne, giving orders and watching dancers, as she plays with a crown. She walks between the dancers, sets the crown on the floor, walks back to the throne, and the abbreviation "VB" is seen, with her fingers making the letter V. Robert Compsey from Digital Spy noted that the video "proved she can laugh at herself".[9]

Track listings and formats[]

These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "Let Your Head Go".

Credits[]

Charts[]

All entries charted with "This Groove".

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Beckham producer slights her talent". BBC News. 23 September 2003. Retrieved 19 December 2007.
  2. ^ "Victoria Beckham's scrapped album leaked". Female First. 8 September 2006. Retrieved 18 December 2007.
  3. ^ Regan, Susannah. "Beckham angry about album leak". Digital Spy. 8 September 2006. Retrieved 22 December 2007.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e "Beckham misses out on number one". BBC News. 4 January 2005. Retrieved 19 December 2007.
  5. ^ "MTV News Round-Up 25 May 2004". MTV. 25 May 2004. Archived from the original on 10 December 2007. Retrieved 18 December 2007.
  6. ^ "Beckham's Rapping Ridiculed". Contact Music. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
  7. ^ Sherwin, Adam (26 July 2004). "Posh Spice has finally done something to improve pop music". The Times. London. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b Stern, Bradley (17 January 2016). "Victoria Beckham and the Solo Album That Never Was". Muumuse. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Copsey, Robert (18 September 2013). "Spice Girls solo singles: The best and worst - listen". Digital Spy. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  10. ^ "Worst to Best: Spice Girls' Solo Careers". Hollywood.com. 24 September 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  11. ^ "UK best selling artists 2004". Top40-Charts.com. May 5, 2005. Archived from the original on May 24, 2011. Retrieved 2008-01-13.
  12. ^ Myers, Justin (10 January 2014). "Official Charts Flashback 2004: Victoria Beckham – Let Your Head Go/This Groove". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  13. ^ "Victoria Beckham - Let Your Head Go (CD) at Discogs". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2012-06-24.
  14. ^ "Hits of the World – Eurocharts" (PDF). Billboard. Vol. 116 no. 3. 17 January 2004. p. 43. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  15. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – This Groove / Let Your Head Go". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  16. ^ "Arhiva romanian top 100 – Editia 5, saptamina 2.02 – 8.02, 2004" (in Romanian). Romanian Top 100. Archived from the original on 20 February 2005. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  17. ^ "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  18. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  19. ^ "The Official UK Singles Chart 2004" (PDF). UKChartsPlus. p. 1. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
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