[photopress:heidi.jpg,full,alignright]Regular readers will know that I’m prone to hyperbole when it comes to pop music, but – is the new Sugababes single (and video) the pinnacle of human achievement, or what? The answer is, of course, yes.

Here’s why.

* It’s about sex. Sure, most good pop music is about sex, but this is clearly about the kind of sex that’s likely to cause psychological scarring, scare the neighbours and put your back out. Excellent!

* The lyrics are hilarious and involve a “pretty kitty”, a postman and a landing strip.

* The video’s gone for a BDSM/fetish theme, and as a result you see Heidi – one of the most beautiful women in pop – in a latex pencil skirt and killer heels. I was so shocked I dropped my pipe and burned a hole in my favourite slippers.

* The new Sugababe, quite splendidly, appears to be detective Rita Ortiz from NYPD Blue.

Of course, creating a video that’s custom-built to make thirtysomething men think rude things is all well and good, but it’s been teamed with a tune that’s probably the best thing the Sugababes have ever done. The bridge into the chorus does the tension/release thing, so you get some doomy chords – very gothy – before the song breaks into a chorus that’s so utterly joyous it could make an Easter Island statue crack a grin. Amazingly, some people would rather listen to the Arctic Monkeys than to this precision-tooled slice of pop magic. The fools!