One Touch

Keisha Buchanan and Mutya Buena were childhood friends since they were eight, who eventually met Siobhan Donaghy at a 1998 party when they were thirteen, and decided to form a band. Through Siobhan, they met their manager who unofficially called the band by the name Subababies, the nickname of Keisha and Mutya. At fourteen, they were offered a record contract from London Records, and started calling themselves the Sugababes.

The first debut single "Overload" made the UK Top 10 and was nominated for a Brit Award. The song also reached number 3 in the Germany and number 2 in New Zealand. The group wrote some of the tracks on One Touch, and had help of All Saints producer Cameron McVey. Their debut album produced three more top 40 hits in the UK - "New Year", "Run for Cover" and "Soul Sound". The album eventually peaked at number 26 on the UK Album Charts (the album fared better in Germany where it peaked at number however the sales of One Touch did not meet London Records' expectations, and it led to them dropping the band in 2001. During a Japanese tour Siobhan Donaghy left the band stating initially that she wanted to pursue a fashion career, eventually being diagnosed with clinical depression amid reports of in-fighting between the Sugababes members.

Angels With Dirty Faces

Heidi Range was announced as Donaghy's replacement in 2001, a founding member of Atomic Kitten, and the trio signed a new record contract with Island Records. Their first single on the new label, "Freak Like Me", was produced by Richard X -- where the Sugababes recorded the song in Richard X's own flat. The song used a sample from "Are Friends Electric?" by Gary Numan's Tubeway Army, with the girls performing lyrics taken from Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me". The video featured a dark setting, showing Heidi's introduction into the band, debuting at number one in the UK and number two in Ireland in 2002; making their first ever top spot in the UK. Their second single with Range, "Round Round", produced by Kent-based production group, Xenomania, was the group's second UK number one single and reached number two in Ireland, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

On the back of these hits, Sugababes' second album Angels With Dirty Faces debuted at number two on the UK album chart and was a success across Europe. The third single from the album, a ballad entitled "Stronger" gained the girls their third straight top 10 hit in their native country. The B-side "Angels With Dirty Faces", was the main theme to the The Powerpuff Girls Movie. The fourth single "Shape," which samples the Sting track, "Shape Of My Heart," made number eleven in the UK and had moderate success in Netherlands and Ireland in early 2003. The B-side featured a live version of "Freak Like Me" when they performed at the 2003 Brit Awards, where they won the award for "Best British Dance Act". Their success also led to a song that had not been included on the album, entitled "Party In The Club", being used as the main song to ITV's teenaged drama show Girls In Love, based on the book of the same name by Jacqueline Wilson.

Three

The group's third album Three was released in late 2003 and continued success reaching number three on the UK Album Chart, preceded by the Xenomania produced "Hole In The Head". It was the band's third UK number one single and their first number one in Denmark. It reached number two in Ireland, Netherlands and Norway, and also became the babes' first single to chart in the official Billboard charts peaking at #96 and hit the US Billboard Dance Chart at #1. The second single "Too Lost In You," which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Love Actually and was written by Diane Warren, went top ten in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Norway, as well as going top ten on both sides of the Straits of Taiwan (Taiwan and China). The song was originally recorded in French by Patricia Kaas and entitled "Quand J'ai Peur De Tout" . The album's third single, "In The Middle," released in 2004, went to number 8 in the UK. The fourth single to be released from "Three" was the ballad, "Caught In A Moment," gave the girls another top 10 hit, peaking at number 8, backed by tracks recorded from their Sessions@AOL appearance.

In 2004, the trio joined acts such as Coldplay's Chris Martin, Dido and Robbie Williams on a 2004 version of the 1984 Band Aid's orginial "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which in December went to number 1 in the UK and sold over 200,000 copies in it's first week. The charity single which all the money raised went toward famine relief in the Darfur region of Sudan.

After a break from the music industry, whilst recording their fourth album, Mutya announced she and her boyfriend Jay, were expecting a child. Their daughter named Tahlia Maya Buena, was born in March 2005.

The group later gave their first performance for over a year at the Edinburgh Live 8 concert. In this time, the girls had been recording their fourth album, working with variety of songwriters and producers, including USA producer, Dallas Austin.

Taller In More Ways

On 2 October 2005 the Dallas Austin produced "Push The Button" debuted at number one in the UK singles chart, giving the girls their fourth number one single and first Irish number one single. The song was later nominated at the Brit Awards for 'Best British Single'. The single also went number one in Austria and New Zealand.

On 16 October 2005, Taller In More Ways became the band's first UK number one album. On that same date, the girls celebrated being number one in the singles, album, airplay, and download charts at the same time. Taller In More Ways saw the band work with Guy Sigsworth, Brian Higgins, Xenomania, and Cameron McVey among others.

Following an apparent illness, that prevented Buena from promoting the follow up single "Ugly", it was announced on 21 December 2005 that Buena had left Sugababes. According to an announcement on their site, "Mutya's decision was based purely on personal reasons and she will continue to remain the best of friends with both Keisha and Heidi". The last remaining orginial member Keisha Buchanan upon Buena's departure "...we will all miss Mutya, but we also knew there was still a place for bringing in somebody new who could help us carry on taking the Sugababes brand of music forward".

Amelle Berrabah took over in late December. Before joining the Sugababes, Amelle featured in the band 'Boo2' with her sister Samiya. The third single was a re-recorded version of "Red Dress" which was released in early 2006 gave the group a third consecutive top 5 hit from the album entering the UK singles chart at number four. Amelle also re-recorded tracks from Taller In More Ways for a re-release of the album. Amelle's vocals appear on 4 tracks including the bonus track; Mutya's vocals remain on the rest of the album. In early 2006, Taller In More Ways earned a Platinum Award from the IFPI in recognition of over 1 million copies sold in Europe. In April 2006, the girls won "Best World Group" at the ESKA Music Awards 2006 in Poland. The final single from Taller In More Ways was "Follow Me Home", released in mid-2006. Despite the song featuring new vocals from Amelle, "Follow Me Home" charted at number thirty-two - the lowest position to date for a Sugababes single.

Overloaded: The Singles Collection

The Sugababes returned to the recording studio to start work on their fifth studio album, entitled Overloaded: The Singles Collection. The lead single from the compilation, "Easy," was co-written by George Astario and Jason Pebworth from Californian band Orson. "Easy" was released, prior to the hits compilation album, and peaked at number eight in the UK Single Charts. Unfortunately, the single failed to make a significant impact and fell quickly out of the chart.

The singles compilation was released 13 November 2006, peaking at number 3 on the album charts in the UK. The compilation contains tracks from One Touch to Taller In More Ways, excluding tracks "New Year", "Soul Sound", "Angels With Dirty Faces", and "Follow Me Home", most of which were not released outside of the UK. A separate DVD was also released, featuring 14 of their music videos and karaoke versions, as well as a special deluxe digital download version featuring live performances, a special digital download remix collection, entitled Overloaded: The Remix Collection, and a Napster Live Session, featuring acoustic versions of four of their hits and their cover of Primal Scream's hit, "Rocks".

It was believed that Good To Be Gone would be released as the 2nd single from this album. However, this has been put into doubt following confirmation of a new single in March.

Sugababes will team up with fellow U.K. girl band, Girls Aloud, to cover the classic hit, "Walk This Way" - originally a hit for Aerosmith in the 1970's and then again upon collaboration with Run DMC in 1986. The track will be released in March 2007 as the official single for the 2007 Comic Relief fundraising.