A pop music act consisting of three young attractive females from
London,
England. Namely:-
Their style is
R'n'B influenced, and is packaged with music and video clips with unusually high
production values. Mutya and Keisha were school friends prior to being signed to
London Records. The original trio were only 16(ish) when their single
Overload became a hit in September
2000. The album
One Touch (featuring further singles
New Year and
Run for Cover) followed, but unfortunately failed to shift in sufficient quantities and the girls were dropped from their label. (Indeed many aspects of the 'babes career seem to indicate a high level of record company manipulation.)
This could have been the end of their ride on the pop rollercoaster, but in early 2002 a new DJ craze of syncing the vocals of one record to the backing of another (sometimes called 'bootlegging') afforded them a canny new opportunity. An anonymous white-label was released that comprised of the Sugababes singing Girls at Play's Freak Like Me over Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric?, under the name of 'R Freaks Electric'. This track received a somewhat enthusiastic reception, and was released officially (with the appropriate legal sign-offs, natch) as Freak Like Me, reaching Number 1 (deservedly knocking Oasis's latest bunch of arse off the top spot). They've now chalked up another number one with Round Round.
Although the next stage of their career is probably going to be marrying footballers and acrimonious implosion, before an ironic revival in 20 years time, it is good to see that not all 'manufacturered' pop music has to be completely horrible to the ears of anyone over the age of nine.