Taller in More Ways
Sugababes
out 10 October
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Perhaps what is most striking about the new Sugababes record is its schizophrenic stance. What shocks even more is that this is a cause for celebration, rather than a dearth of musical focus one might expect from any given girl group’s fourth album. But then again, the Sugababes have made a name for themselves as R&B renegades, never being so predictable as to follow the rules of pop school. They were dropped from their original label, London Records, only to return in 2002 with Heidi Range and the hottest mash-up since Jason Nevins met Run DMC in Freak Like Me. Last year, rumours of a break up filled column after column, fuelled by a couple of lower charting singles, though indicative of the downward sales trend more than anything else, and the news that Mutya was (shock horror!) to become a mum.
And here the girls have pulled off the whole return-to-form feat once more with what is their finest single to date, the blippy, electro-fused opener Push the Button. The track epitomises all that is good and great with Taller in More Ways: a refreshingly rich, diverse, at times expansive pop sound that actually dares to revel in melody.
Much of this bravado comes courtesy of the varied stock of production talent in evidence on the album. While British pop stalwarts Cathy Dennis and Guy Chambers do the usual rounds with expected grace (the dirty swing bass of It Ain’t Easy is a treat) the real joy comes courtesy of the arch presence of Stateside uber-producer Dallas Austin, who, notably, has worked with another famed girl trio of recent years, TLC. Whereas Austin’s brief for that group was to, perhaps, soften the spiky edges which remained from their early 90s beats and rhymes, on Taller in More Ways Sugababes’ already contemporary savvy makes for an attractive contrast to the American immaculate polish.
Gotta Be You is a masterclass in this transatlantic register. Its relentless pounding crunk bass thumps over Mutya’s deadpan delivery of pearls of wisdom such as, “My ass is the only thing you’ll see”. Future single Ugly, itself a literal reimagining of TLC’s Unpretty, sounds like a dispatch from young womanhood but without the hackneyed melodrama of regular pop sentiments in this vein. Elsewhere, tracks such as Bruised are recorded slightly off skew, with faintly sped up vocals or skipped beats for example, which have a disconcerting effect at first, only to then sit effortlessly with the spacey, retro design of subsequent songs Obsession and Ace Reject. It is such expert breaching of the void between radio friendly pop and leftfield styling that lends Taller in More Ways its distinction.
Yes, there does exist on the record, as one may expect, moments of mainstream R&B mediocrity dug from the depths of a thousand other urban pop albums, but these are few and far between, outweighed by moments such as Xeromania’s (responsible for past successes Round Round and Hole in the Head) throbbing composition, Red Dress, or the orchestral overflow of closing track 2 Hearts. Most crucially of all, however, is that with Taller in More Ways the Sugababes have equalled the tallies of predecessors Destiny’s Child, TLC and The Supremes in terms of sheer productivity. And that’s saying something for this cat-of-nine-lives trio. To the Sugababes size obviously does matter, and with this record they are about to prove it to the rest of us.ARCHIVE: 0th week MT 2005
Size does matter
