It’s official. The Sugababes are hanging onto their record deal… by a thread. The newest Sugababe recruit Jade Ewen was rumoured to have left the group, which she then denied on twitter earlier this morning. Their Nokia-sponsored lead single ‘Freedom’ has been pulled from all the popular pre-order outlets such as iTunes, Play.com, and Amazon. The joke? The track is now being given away for free on Amazon as a “thank you to their fans”. The single was axed due to poor pre-determined projections (it showed the song would place outside of the UK top 20). Not to mention that it has recieved zero airplay on the radio. To round this off, they practically pulled the plug on their own single to save face and further embarrassment.

The group has greatly suffered ever since founding and only original member Keisha Buchanan was ousted from the group in 2009. Since her sacking, they have had chart bomb after chart bomb. With no original member left in existence, people have said it fair and square that this group can no longer call themselves the Sugababes. Their last album ‘Sweet 7′ sold less than 30K since its release two years ago and music consumers continue not to show any leniency towards the struggling girl group. Ewen may have denied walking away but at this rate, she may very well have done. I kind of feel bad for her because her solo career wasn’t really taking off and she thought that joining an already established girl group would have propelled her to greater heights. Sadly, that has not been the case and she was badly scorned for “taking” Keisha’s place. In her defense, she took what looked like a golden opportunity and went for it. Wouldn’t you? As for Ms Buchanan, revenge (or karma we must say) is best served cold eh? The girls, who signed a new deal with RCA, are preparing to put out their second single but if this one tanks, it’s over.