"When I was seven they said I was strange"

September 2009, now we come to think of it, was a fairly tumultous month in the world of pop. It saw the demise of one great pop institution and what-should-almost-certainly-have-been the demise of another. But aside from the temporal coincidence of their respective "line up changes", there is a richer vein of material which connects The Sugababes...

 (Please note, conclusive research from thepopweb laboratories has determined that THIS is the definitive line-up of the Sugababes, even if Heidi clearly had to rush out from clown college in order to attend this particular "bash")

...and Chas & Dave.

 Find out how they're connected after the jump...


Chas & Dave, when their split was announced, were lauded by indie luminaries The Libertines (well... more specifically, the one from the Libertines who wasn't a little bit AWOL as a result of a small entanglement with the law...). The Libertines, it emerged, customarily played Chas & Dave songs during rehearsals and were cited by Doherty as a significant influence on his songwriting. You want evidence? Check out this impromptu tribute at the 2005 NME Awards.

Oh Pete Doherty, he's a "one" isn't he? Often hailed as a prestigious songwriting talent, more customarily known as a complete and utter crackhead (allegedly...). Crucially, do you remember this seminal, heartwarming performance at Live 8?




I think we can all agree that went well. Poor Elton John, sticking his neck out like that on a huge world stage, performing one of his closest friend's most famous songs, only for Pete Doherty largely to forget how to sing into a microphone and/or pronounce the most elementary monosyllabic words.

:-(

... Anyway, Elton John has made a fair few quid out of this duetting lark. We've already covered, in another context, the effects of him teaming up with George Michael in 1991, but he's also mixed it up with the likes of Blue, and twice with Kiki Dee (with "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" being the obvious one to mention, but let us not forget "True Love" at the arse end of 1993 - actually, let's forget that, perhaps). Also in 1999, when Elt was desperately trying to flog Aida to whoever might be listening, he enlisted LeAnn Rimes to give him a hand with "Written In The Stars"



Speaking of LeAnn Rimes, would anyone agree with our assessment that "Can't Fight The Moonlight" should really be the only song on any future Greatest Hits release?

Anyway, LeAnn teamed up with Ronan Keating five years later on "Last Thing On My Mind". No, don't panic, this wasn't a godawful cover of a Bananarama classic, it's actually a fairly pedestrian but not all that offensive ballad. It's just a shame Ronan Keating appears on it, really.

When Ronan isn't busy trying to make a couple of quid out of the lucrative Mother's Day market, he passes his time as the lead singer of Boyzone. The project was initially masterminded, of course, by a certain Mr Louis Walsh. The pop "svegali" was also in charge of the careers of a certain fledgling girl band called Girls Aloud. You may have heard of them. Well, if you haven't, it gives us an excuse to dig out this picture again so everyone's a winner.

As an indirect consequence of the untimely death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately, there's an even stronger connection between these two pop dynasties now. Anyone unfortunate enough to have sat through Boyzone's tribute to Stephen broadcast on ITV earlier this year would have seen Nadine Coyle show up and get off to a not-exactly-flying start to her (hopefully) Cheryl-beating solo career:



It doesn't get much prettier from here, folks. Girls Aloud provide the final link in our chain, but for all the wrong reasons. In 2007, they and the Sugababes were chosen to provide the song for that year's Comic Relief effort. Two of the biggest pop acts of the 21st century were thrown together and the world held its breath to see what masterpiece they would come up with.

We got this:



Oh dear.

Moving swiftly on, the chain is complete:

Chas & Dave - The Libertines - Elton John - LeAnn Rimes - Boyzone - Girls Aloud - Sugababes

It just isn't the same is it? :-(

Come back Keisha/Mutya/Siobhan, all is forgiven.