Remembrance Monday: Supersister - Coffee

On the 2nd of October 2000 All Saints released a song that was to become their fifth and final Number One: 'Black Coffee'. It was OK, but far from their best, presumably coming from William Orbit's 'maybe' pile for Madonna. Thankfully, the very same week another girl group had the ingenuity to show Shaznay and co exactly how a song about coffee should be done.

That group was Sheffield's own Supersister, whose 'Coffee' was much unlike All Saints' unsweetened attempt in that it was 3 minutes and 32 seconds full of ropey saccharin, and also at least 10 times as good. Here it is:

Supersister were comprised of 'best friends' Eleanor Phillips, Tina Peacock and the wonderfully named Louise Fudge and 'Coffee' was their debut single. It's disco for the embryonic 21st century, packed with strings and brass and all the other elements that Chic implemented to a much higher standard, and, what with the song ostensibly being about coffee, even a cod-Latin bit with references to espresso and Costa Rica. Again, it's only ostensibly about coffee; the lyrics include analogies like "I like my men like I like my coffee; hot, strong and sweet like toffee" and, by extension, metaphors like "I like my coffee with cream". (They mean semen.)

So, all in all, it was camper than a Su Pollard convention, and despite only reaching a peak of 16 was to find a significant flagbearer just under a year later in Big Brother winner Brian Dowling, who regularly sang it around the house. With his help (presumably) Supersister's belated second single was propelled to the respectable, if not exactly dizzy, heights of Number 36 that August; the group even enjoying a high profile appearance at G-A-Y with Dowling as their fourth member. Sadly, despite that, shows with Hear'Say and Steps, and Christmas light switch-ons in Birkenhead, Wrexham and Chester, the trio couldn't maintain such high levels of success, with third single, 'Summer Gonna Come Again', making only Number 51 in November. Fourth single, 'I Just Came To Dance', was never released (it ended up as an S Club 8 album track) and a planned album, 'Lip Service', was also scrapped.

So that was the end of the pop road for our three heroines. Fudge later got stuck in to a college course in order to open a hairdressing salon in Sheffield, but hasn't deserted music entirely. Earlier this year she (seemingly under a married name) provided vocals, along with Peacock, for Duane Eddy in Sheffield, which is an absolutely mental proposition, but really did happen. God knows about the other one.