What's a babe without sugar?

Picture the scenario. 

You're a North London teenager doing some singing with your best mate when you meet some other girl at a party who can sing pretty good too. So you form a band and at the age of 16 you've released your first single and it's gone Top 10. Thrilled right? Except one leaves after a bit and your success has kinda died and your record label has given up on you. Resolution? Get some hot blonde and a Gary Numan sample, and your music's taking over dancefloors everywhere. A few successful albums later, and you decide it's too much and you leave. 

So then you're replaced by someone new and the band kinda goes to shit and stops releasing good singles. Because that's what's happened with the most succesful girl group of the 21st Century - of course I'm talking about the Sugababes.

Don't get me wrong, I used to fucking love them. They've released some brilliant pop music over the past nine years that most pop acts would kill to release, and they've been amazingly succesful. Up to now. Latest single No Can Do has completely flopped charting at #83, their lowest ever, and a review of their latest album reads that they've gone from "an out there, edgy pop band to being as predictable as Atomic Kitten".

And it's true, they've completely lost their edge. Compare No Can Do to their irresistable first #1 Freak Like Me and you'll see the difference. The electro-rape of that as a comeback song compared to their new stuff shows that while all three members are still incredibly young, their newer stuff already sounds a bit dated.  Compared to Sugababes circa 2003 with songs such as Stronger and Too Lost in You, they just don't have that kinda alternative girl band feel to them anymore. 

And they change members so often they may as well have a Gap Year Placement programme. The Mutya years were the greatest. Will we be saying bye to the Sugababes soon? I hope not, I hope they reinvent themselves for their next album and come up with something which blows the world away and shows up Girls Aloud for the crap they are. Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath.

Here's their slippery slope ....

Overload

Freak Like Me

Too Lost In You

Red Dress

No Can Do