sugababes

1019. ‘Push the Button’, by Sugababes

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Two huge girl group number ones in a row. And after Pussycat Dolls’ ballsy and bouncy ‘Don’t Cha’, the Sugababes go for something similarly seductive.

Push the Button, by Sugababes (their 4th of six #1s) 

3 weeks, from 2nd – 23rd October 2005

And in doing so, they come up with a really, really good tune. ‘Push the Button’ is a modern girl group classic. The rising chord progression, the semi-melancholy, yearning upward motion of it. It feels like a three and a half minute key change, especially in the bridge. After waiting patiently for him to come and get it, He came on through and asked me if I wanted to get with it… (Note that our British girls have been waiting demurely, unlike those hussies in the Pussycat Dolls… How obvious should a girl be? they ask in the first verse, making the record actually quite an astute commentary on straight dating culture.)

Then comes the chorus, and an extra chugging bass synth, and before you realise it you’re listening to one of the decade’s – nay, the 21st century’s – best pop songs. All three of Sugababes’ previous chart-toppers have been good to great, but ‘Push the Button’ tops them all with its catchy simplicity. For it is simple. The lyrics are basic, the production nothing fancy, the video with the girls dancing in a lift is predictable… But it has layers, little touches of sound and some really nice harmonising, that lift it up. Plus it has a spoken-word section, done in the same key-changing style, which is always a welcome addition to a song.

I joke about how brazen the Pussycat Dolls were, and if they weren’t back-to-back #1s then we probably wouldn’t be comparing the two. But really, this song is just as saucy. It’s just much more British. Mutya delivers the line My sexy ass has got him in a new dimension… in a way that is equal parts understated and silly. Nicole Scherzinger would have squeezed the life out of that lyric. Even the song’s title could be seen as a good old-fashioned, end of the pier double entendre. 

And my US vs UK comparison can be taken further, when we note that despite ‘Push the Button’ being a huge hit around the world, a Top 10 from Hungary to Australia and everywhere in between, it did not chart in the USA. In fact, Sugababes solitary appearance on the Hot 100 was for ‘Hole in the Head’, which made the heady heights of #96. Oh, America.

Having mentioned Mutya Beuno earlier, we should also mention that this was her final Sugababes’ single for some fifteen years, as she left the group that December to be replaced by Amelle Berrabah. Keisha Buchanan was left as the only remaining original Sugababe, and this line-up will see out their chart-topping careers over the next couple of years.

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961. ‘Hole in the Head’, by Sugababes

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

Sugababes return for their third album, and a third chart-topping single. But is this the forgotten Sugababes #1?

Hole in the Head, by Sugababes (their 3rd of six #1s)

1 week, 19th – 26th October 2003

On the face of it, not much has changed since their chart-topping double whammy of the year before. Same catchy, street-smart beats (musically this is an interesting mix of an R&B rhythm with an almost banjo-ey twang). Same sass. Seven hours since you closed the door, Started a diet, Got a manicure… They miss that boy like a hole in the head, to the point where they would kiss their own arses before thinking of him. The logistics of which escape me, but I like the sentiment.

Yet, this business-as-usual approach makes the song, decent as it is, come across as a little basic when compared to ‘Round Round’, and especially to ‘Freak Like Me’. Those two hits were at the forefront of a shift in pop music, from turn of the century bubblegum to beefier 21st century beats. Since then we’ve seen great pop records from Christina, t.A.T.u, Beyoncé, among others, and so you might have hoped for something bigger and bolder from the Sugababes’ return. Not to mention that Girls Aloud were threatening their ‘biggest girl group in the land’ crown.

If this had come out a year earlier I might have hailed it as revolutionary. As it is, I hail it as a decent pop record, but a bit of a retread. The Sugababes had done better, and have better to come. Also, and perhaps this is intentional, even the lyrics creak under a bit of scrutiny. The sass is almost performative. They are so adamant that they don’t miss this ex, that you start to wonder if the ladies doth protest too much.

Sugababes third album was, for me, a little bit of a step backwards, especially in terms of its singles. None of the others would make #1, meaning that it’ll be a couple of years before they return to these pages. Meanwhile, Girls Aloud had started churning out pop classic after pop classic. Not that it was much of a rivalry, except in the fevered minds of now middle-aged gay men (myself included), but GA did feel like the fresher force back in 2003. Interestingly though, ‘Hole in the Head’ was produced by Brian Higgins and Xenomania, who were much better known for their work with, yes, Girls Aloud.

933. ‘Round Round’, by Sugababes

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In which Sugababes cement their sudden rise to becoming Britain’s biggest girl group, with another cool chart-topper.

Round Round, by Sugababes (their 2nd of six #1s)

1 week, from 18th – 25th August 2002

The energetic Spice Girls were a big exception to this rule, but generally the best girl groups are the ones that make it seem effortless. Like they don’t have to try, and can just conjure classic pop songs out of thin air. Watch great sixties groups like the Supremes and the Ronettes performing live: no wild dance routines, just sparkly dresses and a knowing smile. By the ‘90s the US rap-pop girl groups like TLC and En Vogue had the same haughty spirit, while All Saints turned looking like they couldn’t be arsed into an art form.

Sugababes were firmly in this camp. Listen to the way Mutya almost whispers her opening verse. Calling it husky, or sultry, can’t quite tell the whole story. She sounds like she’s just gotten out of bed, three hours late to the studio. It drips in attitude. I think the kids today might call it cunty. Whatever, it works.

I like that the beat scythes like a huge blade – one of those big wind pylons – swooping ‘round round’ every couple of seconds. The entire song spins as the title suggests it must. It’s the perfect follow-up to the great ‘Freak Like Me’, enough of a similar vibe – same tempo, same attitude – but sufficiently different to suggest they weren’t turning into one-trick ponies. There’s no sample, no cover version, here. Or at least, not an overt one. The backing beat is based on a track called ‘Tango Forte’, which in turn is based on ‘Whatever Lola Wants’, a song from the 1955 musical ‘Damn Yankees’.

Which is another great argument for sampling not just being lazy snatching of someone else’s ideas. For who could listen to that mid-fifties showtune and hear a pop song from forty years in the future? But for all this bigging up, I have to admit: I don’t think it’s as good as ‘Freak Like Me’. It’s good, very good even, but just not as ear-grabbing as its predecessor. Apart from, that is, the middle eight. In which a completely different song, a piano ballad, is transplanted in right into the heart of this record. It jars, but it works, and the way it slowly morphs back into that ‘Tango Forte’ beat is great.

This chart-topper confirmed that Sugababes Mk II were off and away. Three years of solid hit making were in store, until Mutya left the group in late 2005. Two of them we’ll cover as #1s in the not too distant future. But I should also point you back in time, to Sugababes Mk I, and the singles from their ‘flop’ first album: ‘New Year’, ‘Soul Sound’, and one of the best from any stage of their careers: ‘Overload’.

924. ‘Freak Like Me’, by Sugababes

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Back in my post on All Saints’ ‘Pure Shores’, I crowned the ‘00s as the decade of the girl group. All Saints, as great as they were, were a bit of a false start (and they were technically a ‘90s group, anyway) but we’re finally off and away. Forget Destiny’s Child, forget Atomic Kitten. The two greatest girl groups of the decade (of all time?) score their first #1s in 2002, starting with…

Freak Like Me, by Sugababes (their 1st of six #1s)

1 week, from 28th April – 5th May 2002

No more covers of ‘Eternal Flame’, or songs about well you’re ‘surviving’. The Sugababes grab a sample from Tubeway Army and have their wicked way with it, whipping it into a whirlpool of echo, churn and industrial synths, while singing about how they want it every which way with a bad boy. This is what I want from my girl groups. Filth!

I wanna freak in the morning, freak in the evening… I need a roughneck brother who can satisfy me… The lyrics are nothing revolutionary, even if they are a world away from the kid-friendly Spice Girls. Though the Spiceys are there in spirit, in terms of their Girl Power message. This is girl group pop for the 21st century, in which the women are in charge, and parading their men around like dogs, apparently. Come on and I’ll take you around the hood, On a gangsta lead…

As fresh as All Saints’ hits sounded, I don’t think we’ve heard anything like this on top of the charts before. I’m going to use the word ‘original’, despite the fact that the Gary Numan sample is so front and centre. And despite the fact that the song itself is a cover of a US #2 hit from 1995, by Adina Howard, which itself samples and interpolates snatches from Sly & the Family Stone and Bootsy Collins. DJ Richard X had created a mash-up of Howard’s version and ‘Are “Friends” Electric’, but couldn’t secure Howard’s permission to use her vocals. Instead, he turned to desperate-for-a-hit Sugababes, who had been dropped by their label following an underperforming debut album, and who had lost founding member Siobhán Donaghy a few months earlier. For what it’s worth, Gary Numan claims that this song is better than his original.

So, a girl group. A DJ. A bootleg mash-up. Is this the #1 which officially announces the ‘00s as up and running? I probably claimed the same thing when Hear’Say became the first reality TV winning group, but I much prefer this version of the noughties. This reminds me of university, of the decade’s indie revival where pop and guitars collided, of the hits to come, of the days when I’d go out four nights a week… (nowadays, four nights a year is more likely…)

How much my coming-of-age influences my opinion of this record, and pretty much every #1 between now and 2008, is a good point to raise. But also, it’s a pointless question. Music is memory. The charts are one way of recording the soundtrack to our lives. Had I been born a decade earlier and I might have dismissed this as a gimmicky nothing, but I hope not. I hope the quality of this record can exist beyond my nostalgia.

Like Atomic Kitten with ‘Whole Again’, Sugababes were in danger of being consigned to the dustbin had ‘Freak Like Me’ not been a hit. Thankfully it was, and it set the MK II (and III, and IV) versions of the group up for sixteen further Top 10 hits between now and 2010, five more of which will make #1. And, as good as this record is, I think at least one of their later chart-toppers is better.