Sugababes Vs. Girls Aloud 'Walk This Way'

Chart Peak: 1 (1 week)

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Two of our most successful girl groups have teamed up in the name of charidee for their very own version of the Run DMC and Aerosmith classic 'Walk This Way' - it is the official single for this year's Comic Relief and is due for release just ahead of Red Nose Day in mid-March.

There are exceptions but you'd normally expect the Easter Now album from an odd-numbered year to include the official Comic Relief single and here's 2007's addition to the catalogue, which must go down as one of the more ill-conceived entries in the series. There long seems to have been some tension between the two competing visions: do you attempt to mark the occasion with a comedy record or simply grab a currently-popular act and ask them to do a cover version. This time around they seem to have tried to do both at once by combining the two girl groups with a half-baked conceit about rivalry between them - but weren't the Sugababes more famous for arguing with each other than other bands?

Perhaps there'd be some mileage in the idea of recasting the rather leery macho lyrics of the original for female singers, but by the sounds of it either there were problems with permission or nobody actually thought about the words until the last minute; I'd tend to favour the latter theory, hearing how clumsy the rest of the arrangement is, and that odd combination of rushing to get to the famous chorus and trying to shoehorn in a fresh one. It's an impression only strengthened by the video, which ironically suggests the disagreement by making it look entirely unlike the acts have ever met each other, as well as throwing in cameos by comedians too brief to even make out who they are. Between the fanbases of the two acts and the passing trade of regular charity single buyers a Number One was inevitable but the single only lasted three more weeks in the Top 40 and was soon forgotten, one of the most obscure entries in either act's discography.

Sugababes also appear on: Now 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 70, 71, 74, 75
Girls Aloud also appear on: Now 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73

Available on: Big Night Out