Sugababes' Biggest Problem Is Their Vacuous Identity

As you go about your dead-end 9 to 5 occupation today, don’t hesitate to pause for a minute and remind yourself things could be much worse. You could be Jade Ewen.

A Eurovision loser and the sixth person to take up the role of a Sugababe, Jade replaced the chart topping girl group’s last original member and as a reward landed her bandmates a legal scrap for the rights to use their world famous moniker.

As farcical as the case brought forward by Mutya Buena seems, five years have now passed since the founding member last touted herself as a Sugababe. Indeed, the law suit begs the question of exactly how important a name is?

Fast rising indie four piece Bombay Bicycle Club have openly stated “we don’t like our name”, having borrowed it from an Indian restaurant on King's Road, London, yet success hasn’t shied away from the NME Awards Tour sub-headliners. Likewise, despite shortening their original title of Management to MGMT in an effort to avoid recognition by Google’s search algorithms, it took an ill-thought out sophomore album for Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden to successfully go about their long held ambition of alienating their fan base.

What’s seemingly more important is a band’s identity, the association that pops into your head when a certain act is mentioned. For example, David Bowie – genre hopping space oddity; Marina & The Diamonds – gobby pop minstrel; The Rolling Stones – should have called it quits in 1989. Identity is the reason why Courtney Love chose to market her latest record under the Hole tag rather than see it slump under her solo label. In essence, the public at large still hold a semblance of affection for ‘Live Through This’ era Love whilst carrying considerably less fondness for any record that holds with it the memory of ‘America’s Sweetheart’.

Back to the Sugababes, and what should now be hopelessly apparent, is that even if Mutya Buena wins the rights to use her former band’s name, the brand behind that name has been almost irrevocably tarnished. Whereas one could once rely on Kesha, Heidi and Amelle for a first class slice of British pop, the arrival of Jade Ewen has ushered in an identity crisis as to what exactly the Sugababes represent.

Somewhere in the recording for the ironically titled album ‘Sweet 7’, the three piece’s traditional blend of sass and colloquial innuendo was replaced with an unflattering sledge hammer approach to sexuality with 'Get Sexy' and 'Wear My Kiss' proving the main offenders.

A strong sense of identity shouldn’t preclude the idea of change but artistic evolution works best when it’s kept in the same spirit of that which preceded it. Hence MGMT and Courtney Love are scrambling to defend themselves against the hostile reaction to their new records, and Jade Ewen may look on with something a little stronger than fondness as another Eurovision is set to hit our TV screens at the weekend.