I talked about Ugly the other day in my post about Mutya’s new single. I’d like to chat about Ugly for a while though, as it’s one of Sugababes best songs.

As I said in the review for Real Girl, Mutya has a real knack for writing honest, autobiographical songs that people can relate to. In Ugly, she takes the lead vocal and delivers a stunningly low-key performance.

For the old-skool among us, it’s a little bit like TLC’s Unpretty, except it’s more personal. It’s tackling the age old problem of beauty being skin deep. You could probably mention Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful in the same context.

I think the video’s particularly effective in this song, with Mutya singing the first verse to her reflection in a mirror. The remainder of the video features an assortment of offbeat performers supposedly auditioning. In the video, they’ve chosen unconventional looking people to back up the theme of the song, too.

A great tune and a rare serious moment for Sugababes: