Keisha - Carried Away

Here's Keisha Buchanan singing Carried Away at the Jacques gig last year. The track is due to  be released on her album. Or maybe they'll sing it together? It would sound massive.

Siobhan in the studio

And tonight Siobhan Donaghy confirms that she has given up her job to return full-time to music. That must mean a good contract....

siobhan donaghy @siobhandonaghy

@DazAstir I've never worked in the city. I worked for Storm Model Agency as a booker. Extremely sad to leave. But music is a callin'

The Reunion - the facts

The papers are now reporting The Reunion as fact. I wish it were - and really hope it is true.

Todays Press Association report - 'Original Sugababes back together'

But what are the facts?
Song-writer Emeli Sande has given one interview to MTV saying she has written a song for Keisha, Siobhan and Mutya.
There was evidence that Mutya and Keisha were in a studio with Professor Green earlier this month. Both have since denied they were recording together - but they might have been.
Keisha is currently in California, continuing her protracted solo recording, so far as can be ascertained.

So what else could be happening?
They could be testing out a reunion, which may or may not have been successful.
They could be recording a single track together - maybe for Comic Relief.

The Mirror appeared to have spoken to somebody else, possibly Mutya, who talked about Siobhan leaving a City job.

It would be great to get more hard evidence. But most of the reports seem to be recycling the single Emeli interview.

Another new album

Meanwhile the Sugababes Tribute Band has set a date for their new album.

It is April 9th and you can find it on Amazon. It doesn't have a name or a track-listing - so probably not worth investing £8.99 yet.

Are we looking at a head to head between the original Sugababes and the new ones?

One Touch - again?

All credit to Popjustice for this brilliant scoop. Love the idea that Keisha, Siobhan and Mutya would call themselves One Touch. These three could only produce brilliant music together:

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5943&Itemid=9

And more on this here:
http://entertainment.stv.tv/music/294739-original-sugababes-record-emeli-sande-song-for-reunion/

But why can't they write their own songs? Siobhan and Keisha between them are definitely capable of great songs.

And before we all get too excited Keisha has tweeted this today (Tuesday):

hun there's no new song with me and a group??? Not sure what you heard xxx

Meanwhile last night (Wednesday 25th) MTV claimed to have confirmed the story:
http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/emeli-sande/344232-emeli-sande-original-sugababes-song-confirmed

Is this getting exciting or what?

Freedom - Sugababes MkIV

Here's the full video of the first track of an up-coming album by the Sugababes Tribute Band (or Sugababes MkIV if you like).

It's not a bad song. In spite of the name - and the launch in North Africa - the lyrics are about as shallow as you can get and seem to be written for teenagers who want to go to Clubs. There's some neat mixing towards the end. It just lacks the va va voom - the beat of the old Sugababes and the depth and harmony of singing.

Band members have promised a "fresh start" on their new album and a "big vocal pop" sound.

Rolling in the Deep

And this.... Listen to the power and range of that voice - and the subtlety of this song (although the phrase "we could have had it all" sounds familiar). This is Rolling in the Deep by Keisha Buchanan.



Apparently it's an Adele song. Here's a good review of Keisha's gig from MTV

A beautiful mess!

Watch this and weep! Keisha's been performing some of her new songs at an intimate performance. Now this is very, very promising in spite of some erratic audio.Can't wait for the album. This is Beautiful Mess...

Freedom - new anthem

The Sugababes Tribute Band has unveiled an anthemic new song at the Mawazine festival in Morrocco. Congratulations to the member of the audience who captured most of it on this grainy recording. Yes, it sounds pretty good - the sort of song that the UK really should submit to the Eurovision song contest. There couldn't have been a better venue for a song called Freedom than the home of the Arab Spring.

I'm quite looking forward to hearing a recorded version. Good luck to the new band - pop music seems pretty desperate at the moment and even an echo of the sound that was the quality backdrop to the 2000s will do it wonders.

Meanwhile what news of Keisha Buchanan's album?

Under Control? Keisha Buchanan

This is a leak from Keisha Buchanan's new album - suggested by some to be her new single. I hope not. Raw? yes, fresh? not sure! The direction takes her back to dance music - and that makes good sense. But the backing music is limited and lacks the delicacy of One Touch or the brilliant mixing of Angels with Dirty Faces. Keisha's voice is under-used and the backing vocals are dreadful. Perhaps there's a better remix out there.

On her tweets, she says it's a leak and there is "even better" to come. Now that sounds promising.

Keisha needs a brilliant solo career so she can be a magnet to recreate the Sugababes' magic.

Footnote: keisha-buchanan.com/ has short but much more promising sounding clip. Is there a better version out there? (Have now updated the Youtube video here to a better quality one. It still sounds a bit like the Vengaboys)

Raw and fresh

It’s raw, it’s fresh. I think a lot of people would be quite shocked. It’s not the typical direction people might expect from me.

Keisha Buchanan's words about her up-coming album in this interview.

Keisha Buchanan - Fearless

This is a leak of a solo recording from Keisha Buchanan. The song isn't particularly interesting and the full version seems pretty repetitive. But it's still good news - it suggests we are going to see some pretty impressive vocals when her solo album finally appears.

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.

Sugababes - Change

I began thinking of this song yesterday. It's a great song and it's mainly Keisha. She could probably do it solo comfortably. And it sums up the story - Change. There was always going to be change. The Sugababes have lasted much longer than any other comparable band - if there were comparable bands. Change isn't necessarily bad. It's just different. Things are "never gonna be the same again". A great solo performer is about to emerge from the ashes. And there will be reunion performances and they'll be great events.

Sweet7 - to buy or not to buy?

I'm struggling on this. I really don't want to spend the money on something that I'm not going to enjoy. But it's now a matter of conscience - having downloaded Sweet7, the new version, I ought to pay for it. Besides, a portion of the royalties will go to Keisha, who has some song-writing credits, I believe.

The album's getting uniformly bad reviews. That's no surprise. Catfights and Spotlights had mixed reviews - even though it was an authentic Sugababes album. There's a clutch of reviewers who've never liked the band and cannot be bothered to listen properly.