Angels With Dirty Faces (NAD24)

Redrawing pop music’s borders in the early 21st century, London trio Sugababes occupy an important place in the history of British music. Formed in London in 1998, the group seamlessly combined mainstream pop with cutting-edge R&B, soul and dance music – and they added to this intoxicating mix on 2002’s Angels With Dirty Faces, an album which brought avant-garde electronic music to the masses.

This landmark second album from Sugababes includes the era-defining ‘Freak Like Me’, which, helmed by underground producer Richard X, rode a sample of Tubeway Army’s ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’ all the way to the top of the UK charts in the spring of 2002. Led by the guiding hand of the Xenomania production team, ‘Round Round’ repeated the trick, paving the way for Angels With Dirty Faces to clean up that summer, going triple-platinum and scoring Sugababes the 2003 BRIT Award for Best British Dance Act.