Back in 2000, three girls looked set to take the world by storm. Keisha, Mutya, and Siobhan were blessed with some of the greatest close harmony singing, looked like stars, and had more talent coming out of their fingers than most of the other acts clogging up the release schedules that year. "Overload" was a top 10 sales hit, "Run For Cover" just missed that mark but helped the album One Touch
pick up massive critical acclaim: the album was #8 in the Guardian's end of year review, and the second single my #6 for the year. In spite of this, the album remained on the shelves, London records panicked, and dropped the group. Siobhan left to pursue an art course, and was replaced by Heidi who was a member of Atomic Kitten before they were famous. The new group was picked up by Island records.
Enter, stage left, the fad for putting one song to the tune of another. This is not a new fad: Colin Sell has been practicing it on the radio for the past 30 years, and he really does need the practice. In this case, the melody is the instantly recognisable 1979 chart topper for Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army "Are 'Friends' Electric?". The lyrics are from Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me," a US #2 and UK #33 in 1995, and a 2000 cover by Imanni didn't fare much better. Put them together and you have the hottest bootleg mix of last Christmas.
Adina's people stopped that mix, entitled "We Don't Give A Damn About Our Friends" from charting, but there's no way they could stop someone using the idea to make a tune of their own. Which is where the new 'babes come in, an act in search of a surefire hit. This is it.
Given the history of the track, and if you've ever heard the crystal-clear harmonies of the group, there aren't that many surprises. A few too many electronic beeps and whistles in the opening verse tends to lead attention away, but this is easily rectified. Less easy to ignore is a certain missing something from the harmonies: they're close, but they're not as close as before. Maybe this owes more to the slightly raggedy nature of the track, it's got to be a little less polished and more dirty than their first album, but they're still capable of more.
The result? An annoyingly catchy toe-tapping tune, and one that turns "Freak Like Me" into the storming massive hit it always deserved to be. We've recently had US #1s for Next (Too Close, covered by Blue) and Divine (Lately, covered by Samantha Mumba) turn into top 10 hits. Does anyone want to try "You Were Meant For Me" (#2 for Jewel) "Nobody's Supposed To Be Here" (#2 for Deborah Cox), "Back At One" (#2 for Brian McKnight) or "Everything You Want" (#1 for Vertical Horizon)? Or try "She's All I Ever Had" (#2 for Ricky Martin) or "Be With You" (#1 for Enrique Iglesias) - neither of which got a UK release?
A second Sugababes album is due for release later in the year.