Tuesday, April 6, 2010

So which was the best Sugababes line-up?

We've been polling on this question for a few days and votes are trickling in.

Surprisingly, the original line-up is leading the contest. I say surprisingly because the greatest success and the greatest hits came when Heidi joined the band - when Freak Like Me and Push the Button stormed the charts.

Okay it's not that surprising. We know that young as they were, the originals were three talented young women. Unrecognised as she is, Siobhan has proved herself a talented song-writer. It seems that many of the songs on the under-stated One Touch album were written by the girls. What could they have achieved if they stuck together? Sadly that required commercial success - and that involved handing their fate to others.

Personally I've got mixed feelings. In the face of public opinion, I maintain that Change was the greatest and most perfect album. Yes, that's the next poll! But I was stunned by One Touch from the time when I first heard it, several years after it came out. It was so different from the overblown pap and synthesised absence of melody that characterises most pop music. And really Angels, with its double number one, five singles and two classic live performance tracks should be acknowledged as the best.