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[Aidan]

This is a post on Popjustice from a supposedly reliable poster:

London Records were at one stage a major, with quite a healthy roster of artists, but for whatever reason, they folded due to huge debts. I don't know exactly why, but they had struggled for a few years with releasing stuff & not seeing a return.

Their Management Ron Tom was their original manager, but Mark who is the head of Crown Music Management was their main day to day manager right from the beginning, several people who work/worked at Crown, were also employees at Ron Tom's company metamorphosis.

Like a lot of management when it comes to groups, yes they did favour Siobhan over the other two, so did the label. This is not unusual or uncommon with girl groups. They saw Siobhan as "The Star" so she was pushed forward, giving a lot of the bulk lead vocals & was heavily featured in their videos, more so than the other two. This obviously caused friction, particularly with Keisha & ultimately Siobhan walked out.

She didn't leave to go to the toilet, she did leave during an interview though, but they knew after that interview, that Siobhan was already on a plane on her way back to London & had left the group.

The group were then told they possibly would be dropped from London Records & that the planned 5th single was scrapped.

Ron Tom then set Mark a task of finding a replacement, there were several girls in line, it was whittled down to just five, who then went on to record some demo's where their vocals were added to songs already recorded by Mutya & Keisha (some of these songs possibly had Siobhan on them at one stage), the girls then chose Heidi, who was then invited to a face to face audition to see if she would fit in.

She was in the group for only a few weeks, then London Records sent off a lawyers letter to Ron Tom, saying that they were dropping Mutya & Keisha from the label but were retaining Siobhan as a solo artist, as they couldn't see the group being successful without Siobhan. Not long after that, Siobhan sacked Ron Tom as her manager & he sued her, he won & Siobhan had to pay a substantial amount of money to him for breaking her contract.

Ron Tom has said that he felt that they still had that quality with Heidi in the group that they had with Siobhan, but he would also go on to almost completely dismiss Amelle & the way she was brought into the group years later.

They then signed onto Island Records & as we recently found out, upon signing with Island, the label did NOT buy the rights or trademark the groups name, nobody officially owned it.

Sometime in 2004/2005 Ron Tom, who was pretty much quite hands off at this point, closed his management company, the girls went with Mark to his new company.

Their Parents (Mutya's in particular) were heavily involved in the beginning at London Records, Mutya's dad continued to overlook things during the Angels era, sometime after that & before Three he took a step back & let their management get on with it.

Nobody really knows the real reason why Mutya left, there have been many rumours ranging from postnatal depression, problems with the other girls, problems with their management & their new approach over the group to Mutya having "issues" in her personal life that I'm not going to get into as its against forum rules.

Amelle was then brought in, who had been managed by Crown for several months, they had been trying to get her signed as a solo artist, but couldn't get her a deal. Mark knew Mutya was going to probably leave, so if newspaper reports are to be believed, had Amelle in the wings just waiting, learning & re-recording tracks from Taller. I honestly believe that Mutya set the wheels in motion long before she left, I also believe that the girls were fully aware of this.

Unlike with Heidi, the remaining girls didn't have a choice of who replaced Mutya & were basically told "this is the new girl". This really did seem the start of Crowns controlling grip over the group, who now seem to treat them as employees. I also believe that Amelle was never on that original Island/Universal contract, as she came into an existing contract & an album that had already been released & judging by other girl groups who have been in similar situations & later revealed that as "the new girl" they were a salaried employee of their respected record labels. Also as Mutya still retained her royalties, this is another reason why I think Amelle wasn't on their record contract until it was renewed after the Overloaded campaign when they resigned with Island/Universal.

The whole Keisha ousting thing is a funny one. Yes Amelle did leave & she left that week she "went missing" & not the week it was put in the paper that she left because of Keisha. I also DO NOT believe that Heidi sided with Amelle, thus breaking the group up. Amelle can tell people that's what happened, but she isn't exactly the most reliable person when it comes to telling the truth & I believe that was a story concocted by their management to try & say the group legally didn't exist any more A) In order to force Keisha out of the group & B) to stop any potential law suites.

They put Keisha on a plane back to London making her believe the group had disbanded, when in fact they had not, she later sued Heidi & their management, where it was settled out of court.

The rumours of a possible return of Mutya after Amelle left were true. Mutya was approached by someone at the label about a possibility of returning. Keisha put that to them as she didn't want the group to end, she was fighting to stay & saw that as a more viable option than bringing in Jade. However Heidi said no to that & Mutya said she wasn't interested as there were too many issues in the group.

I do believe that Keisha saying no to Jade may have been more of her "downfall" than Heidi allegedly siding with Amelle, thus ousting Keisha from the group & Jade replacing Keisha instead of Amelle.

Read more.

The last part about Keisha flying to the UK thinking the group was disbanded was quite a shock.