In 2001, while the Sugababes were on a promotional tour in Japan, founding member Siobhán Donaghy decided to quit the group (according to pop music mythology, she made her escape through a bathroom window during a press conference, which, of course, is a total fabrication). At the time, Donaghy said that she left because she wanted to pursue other endeavors; later, she would say that infighting and bullying within the band had led her to exit. Whatever the reason, she would become the first Sugababe of many to leave the band throughout their chart tenure. Stepping up to the plate in Donaghy’s stead was former Atomic Kitten member Heidi Range. And with a new member came a new record label, as well as a new sound. While the Sugababes’ debut album flirted with UK garage and R&B, the approach on Angels with Dirty Faces was distinctly more pop. The band lost none of its insouciant coolness, though, and the music reflected this. They recruited unlikely collaborators, such as cutting-edge Swedish outfit Bloodshy & Avant, who would go on to produce Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and 2000s pop savants Brian Higgins and Miranda Cooper, known collectively as Xenomania, the production group later responsible for the sound of Girls Aloud. Most unexpected, though, was underground bootlegs producer Richard X, who worked with the group on their first hit single, “Freak Like Me.” A mashup of Adina Howard’s original and Gary Numan and the Tubeway Army’s 1979 song “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?,” it’s a scuzzy, swaggering affirmation of the Sugababes’ daring and adventurousness. Follow-up single, the undulating “Round Round,” was equally unusual, its Frankensteinian structure—songwriters took different elements from various unused demos and smushed them together to prioritize hooks—demonstrating an early example of the sort of pop songwriting now being used by artists like Beyoncé. There are other curios too: “Shape” interpolates Sting’s 1993 hit “Shape of My Heart,” “Supernatural” is a glitchy electro-pop stomper, while “Stronger” remains a stunning, sophisticated ballad, its layered strings and Massive Attack-style beat eschewing saccharine tawdriness for something ominous and powerful. The Sugababes may have lost an original member, but with Range and Angels with Dirty Faces, they found their stride.
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