EXHIBIT A: When we first met Stooshe, they were a bit like this.
EXHIBIT B: And now they're a bit like this.
We wonder which of those bands is the real Stooshe?
Was Exhibit B always the end game? If so that's fair enough — a huge number of pop acts establish themselves with caricatured early releases, knowing that they will smooth off all the edges later down the line — but it's hard to really believe it was supposed to become this. Let's not forget the massive song and dance they made about not wanting to sign to Syco in case their whole ethos was watered down, and what is Exhibit B if not a watered down version of Exhibit A? Unless the 'we didn't want to sign to Syco' thing was just a good bit of spin useful for little more than getting the band into the NME.
We're still keen on the idea of Stooshe because some of the tunes are strong, their sound's fairly interesting — it is, at least, not raveface LOLpop — and the personalities we met with the first release of 'Fuck Me' easily put this band in a very different place to all the other girlgroups knocking around at the moment. But it would be interesting to know if they've compromised on their original vision, or whether this was really what they wanted all along. It's not quite what we wanted.