Melanie C thinks younger songwriters are ''much more adventurous'' than she is.

The 46-year-old pop star - who first found fame as part of the Spice Girls in the 90s - is cited as an inspiration by some of today's up-and-coming singers, but Melanie admits they've also taught her to ''hear music differently''.

She shared: ''I love working with much younger writers because their influences growing up were so different to mine.

''It's funny that lots of them loved the Spice Girls, yet they're much more adventurous than me when it comes to melodies and song structures. They taught me to hear music differently. As did learning to DJ.''

Melanie also revealed that over time, she's simply learned to ''care less'' about the perceptions of other people.

The singer - whose new album is set to be released in October - told the Sunday Times newspaper: ''In the past perhaps I haven't wanted to upset the apple cart.

''And that suited some of the people around me. But one of the great things about getting older is that you have the courage to care less. The whole album is saying, 'This is who I am, take it or leave it.' That apple cart? I'm finally up for kicking it over.''

Meanwhile, Melanie recently claimed the Spice Girls started talking about ''girl power'' due to their experiences of sexism.

She explained: ''We wanted to be famous, we wanted to be pop stars and quite quickly we were being told girl bands don't sell records, you can't be on the front cover of magazines because girls buy records by boys.

''We were like, 'Seriously, don't say that to the Spice Girls, that's like a red rag to a bull.'

''So that's when we started talking about girl power and we knew, actually, we had a really important point to prove, and it was great because it gave us a fire in our belly.''