He/Him
I have listened to Sometimes again and I disagree with everyone who wants it out this soon, sorry!
The Sugababes Discography Rate
- Thread starter beyoncésweave
- Start date
he/him
Solenciennes
Staff member
Back Down sounds like it was inspired by Whatta Man to me, to some extent. There's something very 90s about it anyway, aside from the reggae stylings.
OHMYGOD, so I conducted an intensive inquisition on some of the creative decimal scorers and discovered a number of further discrepancies from their replies as they revealed how they had gotten their convoluted scoring strategems in multiple binds. (I knew I should have disallowed increments of less than .5).
The resulting changes are thankfully very minor, and take place outside of the Top 100. The following songs all move up one: Wear My Kiss (#103 to #102); I Can't Take It No More (#102 to #101); and "Back Down" (#101 to #100). Which means we have a new #103. All changes are updated on the Results post.
That should be the last of the shifts; I have had an independent assessor audit the spreadsheet to ensure that there are no other errors. Let me just cry in decimals and pray for a bitsy.
Anyway...
#103
Future Shokk!
Average: 5.194
Highest: 10 x 1 (@Blayke)
Lowest: 1 x 2 (@Reboot, @roux)
My score: 7/10
––The B-Side off the single “Ugly”, this is a bit of an inexplicable exit for me at this stage. The semi-industrial, vaguely cyberpunk theme wears quite well on this, and Keisha and Mutya do a pretty good job on the verses, including some of Mutya’s subtle ad-libs. The “get up get up and jerk that body” hook is kinda great. Parts of the chorus, however, do not sound like them at all. Poor whoever their session singer was (it was Javine). The production has a distinctly unfinished feel to it and you suspect it could have been turned up a notch.
A large portion of their B-Sides are nifty little experiments. Most, including this, are never quite carried through, but they are nonetheless interesting. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps understandably given the large tracklisting of this rate, most of them were sadly bound to get shafted.
Let’s start with londonrain (3.5) who spoils us on their upcoming “Ugly” score: “A cheap-sounding, mediocre B-side to a mediocre single.” CasuallyCrazed (5) is not a fan, “Nails on a chalkboard from start to finish, that chorus is a musical panic attack.” DJHazey (4) proves why his gif game remains dire: “Like some of Monrose's weirder B-Side/Bonus selections, but the difference is those are amazing...this is just *KimberleyWalshGrimace.gif*”
Ironheade (5) is surprisingly not very into this, “The only really interesting bits here are the ones where it alllllmost sounds like trap, because otherwise this is very, very standard. The twisting, complex vocal melodies have a real pull to them, but they're in the service of a weak instrumental. It's unfortunate that so much of the song is given over to a gutless drum machine and a screeching synth that sounds like a dentist's drill - again, potentially decent song screwed over by weirdly bad mixing. And the girls have never sounded comfortable with the rhythmic hip-hop inflected vocal lines presented here, and this song is no exception. Mutya's ad-libs after the chorus are fairly cringeworthy. By the way, pour literusee iz nott kewl.” Listen, they were home-schooled okay? Did you want them to make One Touch or not?
Filler (9) is seized by the spirit of early 2000s Timbaland’s drum machine: “BIG GAY DYSTOPIAN BANGER. CYBERPUNK ANTHEM”. cryctall (9) is also a fan: “Classic sounding Sugababes chorus (in terms of harmonies, blending). Fun. There is something about it.” Solenciennes (6) nearly found it “another bizarre extra nestled away in their B-sides hangar. Mutya is a pleasure to listen to, as always, sounding great on the verses. The chorus is a bit all over the place, the chanting doesn’t do anything for me but it’s a fun concept. Who’s the male vocal?” It’s Sisqo.
Chanex(4) “had high hopes from the title, opening beats and random squeaks but it's just...sleepy? Drones on and on. And I think the "get up get up and jerk that body" was ill-advised.” Constantino (5) is quite fair in their critique: “This has that odd Tricky-brought-into-the-noughties experimentalism about it that I’m not quite sold on. I appreciate that their making the attempt at being bold and different, but it doesn’t really work. Plus, the name is stupid.”
Let’s end with those reduced to brief outbursts, including PCDPG (4): “Awful” and HRH (2): “WHY”. “I don’t know” sighs acl (5). “This is alright I guess”, says kal (5). Finally, “about as far away from A-Side Ugly as you can get” notes mrdonut (5). The contrast also highlights how determined they were about keeping Taller as a largely pure pop affair; something like this, with its more distinct hip-hop feel, would have been fairly incongruous on the album.
The resulting changes are thankfully very minor, and take place outside of the Top 100. The following songs all move up one: Wear My Kiss (#103 to #102); I Can't Take It No More (#102 to #101); and "Back Down" (#101 to #100). Which means we have a new #103. All changes are updated on the Results post.
That should be the last of the shifts; I have had an independent assessor audit the spreadsheet to ensure that there are no other errors. Let me just cry in decimals and pray for a bitsy.
Anyway...
#103
Future Shokk!
Average: 5.194
Highest: 10 x 1 (@Blayke)
Lowest: 1 x 2 (@Reboot, @roux)
My score: 7/10
––
A large portion of their B-Sides are nifty little experiments. Most, including this, are never quite carried through, but they are nonetheless interesting. Unsurprisingly, and perhaps understandably given the large tracklisting of this rate, most of them were sadly bound to get shafted.
Let’s start with londonrain (3.5) who spoils us on their upcoming “Ugly” score: “A cheap-sounding, mediocre B-side to a mediocre single.” CasuallyCrazed (5) is not a fan, “Nails on a chalkboard from start to finish, that chorus is a musical panic attack.” DJHazey (4) proves why his gif game remains dire: “Like some of Monrose's weirder B-Side/Bonus selections, but the difference is those are amazing...this is just *KimberleyWalshGrimace.gif*”
Ironheade (5) is surprisingly not very into this, “The only really interesting bits here are the ones where it alllllmost sounds like trap, because otherwise this is very, very standard. The twisting, complex vocal melodies have a real pull to them, but they're in the service of a weak instrumental. It's unfortunate that so much of the song is given over to a gutless drum machine and a screeching synth that sounds like a dentist's drill - again, potentially decent song screwed over by weirdly bad mixing. And the girls have never sounded comfortable with the rhythmic hip-hop inflected vocal lines presented here, and this song is no exception. Mutya's ad-libs after the chorus are fairly cringeworthy. By the way, pour literusee iz nott kewl.” Listen, they were home-schooled okay? Did you want them to make One Touch or not?
Filler (9) is seized by the spirit of early 2000s Timbaland’s drum machine: “BIG GAY DYSTOPIAN BANGER. CYBERPUNK ANTHEM”. cryctall (9) is also a fan: “Classic sounding Sugababes chorus (in terms of harmonies, blending). Fun. There is something about it.” Solenciennes (6) nearly found it “another bizarre extra nestled away in their B-sides hangar. Mutya is a pleasure to listen to, as always, sounding great on the verses. The chorus is a bit all over the place, the chanting doesn’t do anything for me but it’s a fun concept. Who’s the male vocal?” It’s Sisqo.
Chanex(4) “had high hopes from the title, opening beats and random squeaks but it's just...sleepy? Drones on and on. And I think the "get up get up and jerk that body" was ill-advised.” Constantino (5) is quite fair in their critique: “This has that odd Tricky-brought-into-the-noughties experimentalism about it that I’m not quite sold on. I appreciate that their making the attempt at being bold and different, but it doesn’t really work. Plus, the name is stupid.”
Let’s end with those reduced to brief outbursts, including PCDPG (4): “Awful” and HRH (2): “WHY”. “I don’t know” sighs acl (5). “This is alright I guess”, says kal (5). Finally, “about as far away from A-Side Ugly as you can get” notes mrdonut (5). The contrast also highlights how determined they were about keeping Taller as a largely pure pop affair; something like this, with its more distinct hip-hop feel, would have been fairly incongruous on the album.
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Solenciennes
Staff member
Get up get up and jerk that body
He/Him
I quite like Future Shokk upon listening again, Mutya and Keisha are great together
Solenciennes
Staff member
Sweet 7 and Angels With Dirty Faces both have a few turkeys that need to get out ASAP.
But "My love is pink" is a great Sugababes song! I think certain tracks on catfights sound more Girls Aloud than anything on Change. Even though Change "is" a bit weak for a Sugababes album, it still sounds mostly like a real Sugababes album.
I disagree. There are several songs on Change & Spotlights that sound very Sugababes.
Solenciennes
Staff member
I don't like it, personally, but it's not bad by any means. I think the problem with Change is that it's not cohesive, but it's cohesive enough that it's not a collection of songs (like Three) and there aren't many wow moments unlike Three so it's just a bit underwhelming overall. I think there are two kind of sounds on that album campaign, there's the pop-rock thing that the likes of About You Now, In Recline, Surprise, 3 Spoons Of Suga, Back Down went for... and then there's the kind of Xenomania low key mid tempo pop bit of the album. If they'd dropped one half and gone for the other, either way, it would have been a better album for it. Instead the whole album represents several types of identity crisis for me.
I mostly agree with you about Change, even though I've really come to love that album after doing the rate and voting on it..and realizing how awesome My love is pink is!
ohnostalgia
Staff member
She/her
Oh. My. God.
londonrain
Staff member
This is one of several B-sides that just sound so cheap production-wise. Listening to the 2.0 and 3.0 B-sides all in one go was like listening to a collection of random demos interspersed with the occasional properly-finished banger. My scores for several of these B-sides would have been a lot higher if they had been better mixed. Case in point: Disturbed (as I've mentioned before).
I wonder how long we have until we lose Nasty Ghetto.
I wonder how long we have until we lose Nasty Ghetto.
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Solenciennes
Staff member
I'm with @beyoncésweave on the topic of their B-sides though, yeah a lot of them sound really unfinished and probably would be objectively better if they had a clearer, sparklier production to them but I generally love that most of their B-sides are so leftfield and experimental that I forgive the recorded-in-a-garage sound of them. 2.0 probably had a lot of fun recording those B-sides, they just sound like little extras recorded in about 20 minutes and thrown onto the CD singles as an afterthought and it's effortlessly brilliant.